Loosely Connected Thoughts

I have several loosely connected thoughts running through my head this morning. I'm not going to try to connect the dots though; I'll just put them out there and see if you can make sense out of them.

--As I was trading text messages with a friend last night, we got into a conversation about how sometimes life gives us good distractions during difficult times. For me, those good distractions often entail a sporting event, a short trip with a friend, or a movie. Real life is always waiting around the corner, but it's nice to not have to think about it for a while.

--I know it isn't practical, but as a male I tend to compartmentalize life. When I'm working, I'm not thinking about anything else. When I'm watching a movie, I'm totally involved in the movie. When I go to a baseball game, I'm all in. Of course, that causes all sorts of problems--like not writing a check for a bill that needs to paid, forgetting to return a phone call, etc.

--Life beautifully overlaps. As much as I tend to compartmentalize, I love to see the way life can overlap. It can be as simple as being moved by a phrase in a poem or a certain line from a book, and then finding the perfect opportunity during a conversation to bring that phrase or line into the mix. Or it can be hearing about something you don't have any interest in, but later it helps you to connect with someone you love because he or she is interested in it.

When Harry Met Sally

I watched When Harry Met Sally for the first time in many, many years the other night. I saw the movie when it first came out (1989) and ever since then I thought it was about the age-old question of whether or not men and women can be friends. But after seeing it again with fresh eyes, I saw something different. I'm probably late to the party on this, but that's okay. It won't be the last time.

It seems to me that the movie is more about the way in which men and women interact with each other, and on a deeper level, it's about the way men and women view each other.

In Harry's case, he sees Sally as someone who doesn't take risks, who is obsessive about things she shouldn't be obsessive about, and he seems to think that she is a bit naive about men. Sally sees Harry as being a tad bit arrogant while at the same time being a lost soul who is only interested in sex.

As the years pass, they stick with each other through tough times, and eventually they both come to the same conclusion: they have a tremendous amount of respect for the other person and that respect is beginning to morph into love.

It all comes to head at the end of the movie when Harry is out walking the streets alone on New Year's Eve. He realizes that he needs to go to Sally, who is attending a New Year's Eve party alone, and tell her how he feels about her. The problem is, she's ticked at him because he hasn't seen it sooner.

Here is a portion of their conversation:

"I love that you get cold when it is 71 degrees out," Harry says. "I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you are looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend a day with you I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night.

"And it's not because I'm lonely. And it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spent the rest of your life with somebody you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

"You see, that is just like you Harry," Sally says with tears and love in her eyes. "You say things like that and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I hate you Harry. I really hate you."

Then in a whisper, she says it one more time. "I hate you."

Then they kiss.

The scene is a perfect example of the complexity and the beauty of relationships between men and women.

The Speed of Life

When I have my druthers, I try to find a certain rhythm to life that I can sustain. It's the only way I can seem to go slow enough to enjoy certain moments while going fast enough to get everything done. Sometimes life goes on hyper-overdrive and you just have to go with the flow. But there comes a point when you just have to say "Come on. There's no reason to go that fast."

Sports highlights is one such point. Recently I've been noticing that ESPN and other networks are running highlights in hyper-speed. When showing football highlights, they show a running back breaking through the line, making a great move to get to the open field, and then the network hits hyper-speed as the running back literally races toward the end zone. Then it's on to the next highlight and more hyper-speed. I know they are doing it to squeeze in more highlights from other games, but it has the opposite effect on me than they intend. By the end of the show, I can hardly remember anything I've seen. I end up trying to remember who the running back was and who he plays for and what team his team was playing. It's just too much information too fast.

Ironically, I have the TV on in the background as I write this post and this very moment there is a commercial on for a local college. I guess the college doesn't have a huge marketing budget because the woman doing the voiceover had to get every word in in ten seconds when it probably should have been a thirty second commercial. Again, I can't tell you one thing she said. Too much information, too fast.

If the Walls Could Talk

I just heard that the county I live in has a website in which you can check your home's evaluation. So, I did a search for the home I live in. I wasn't as interested in the evaluation as much as I was to find out when the house was built. The website says it was built in 1915, so the house is 93 years old.

Knowing that fact made me wonder how many families have lived in my home over the years. What did the first family who lived in the house do for entertainment? Television hadn't been invented yet. I wonder if families sat around in the living I now call my own and listened to radio theater? Or maybe they gathered around the radio and listened to news about WWI that was about to begin.

I wonder if the first family who lived in my house built it to their specifications? If so, did they have two children (since there are three bedrooms in the house)? Did they spend quiet evenings on the back porch? Was it enclosed like it is now? How many other houses surrounded mine? How long did the first owners stay in the house? What made them leave? Did someone die? Did someone get a better job in a different city? Did they strike it rich and buy a bigger house?

And who moved in after them? Were they happy to move into the house or was it a step down? What changes did they make? What nuances of the house had settled in by that point? Did the floorboard creak by my bedroom door like it does now? What color did they paint the walls? And what exactly are those flaws in the living room ceiling? Are those the result of a poor repair job of some sort?

How many other families have come and gone from my house since it was built? Ninety three years is a long, long time. Woodrow Wilson was president in 1915. According to this website, the population of the United States was 100,546,000. Federal spending that year was $0.75 billion. And postage stamps were two cents. Yeah, it was that long ago.

This old house has outlived its first owner and probably its second. It has lived through two world wars (and several others), the Great Depression, and so much more. It really does make me wish that the walls could talk.

Starting a Journal

I'm still reading Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton and I've come to a passage that really makes me think. Seventy-one-year-old writer Leonard Schiller is out to dinner with Heather Wolfe, the young woman who is writing her college thesis about Schiller's work. It's actually Heather's 25th birthday and that causes Schiller to wonder what he was doing on his own 25th birthday.

He could only guess. He'd never kept a diary, so he couldn't check. His parents were dead, Molly [the woman he was dating at the time] was unfindable; so Schiller was alone. And since he couldn't remember that day, the day was gone, as if everyone who'd been alive in it, including himself, was dead.

I don't know about you, but I tend to think about the passage of time the same way--if I can't account for it, it's gone, but if I can account for it, it feels like it counted for something. Of course, I know that this isn't always true since it would be impossible to remember and account for every day of our lives, but I would like to be able to account for more of them.

During high school, one of my teachers made us keep a journal. We wrote in it during class. I still have it and every few years, I flip through it and re-live a brief period of high school. It helps me to remember that the good ole' days weren't always good, as Billy Joel once sang. But more than anything, it helps me to remember specifics that would otherwise be gone forever.

A couple of years ago I started a journal, but I was hit and miss with it at best. I sort of see this blog as a journal. But it doesn't chronicle what I do as much as it captures what I was thinking about at the time. But, of course, blogs have limitations. So, I'm toying with the idea of starting a journal again. I doubt if I'll keep it up, but I'd also hate to feel the way Schiller did one day in the distant future.

Movie Theater Closings

Over the weekend, I went to see The Dark Knight with a couple of friends at a movie theater that used to be one of the most popular ones in town. That's not the case anymore. It's aging. The popcorn is always stale. And you can walk down the corridors without ever seeing another person.

When I was growing up, the theater was one of the first theaters in town that could probably have been considered a mega-plex, so I guess that made it the "in" thing. At the time, it was located on what was considered the west site of town. Now, it's close to being mid-town.

But like I said, nobody goes there much anymore. Reasons abound--beyond the bad popcorn. The city has much nicer theaters now, located all over the city. And I imagine that all of the competition led to the recent announcement that the theater would close it's doors either late this year or early next.

I mentioned that to my friends as we were walking in and it caused all of us to reminisce about the many hours all of us spent in the place as we were growing up.

The funny thing is, I don't have many specific memories of movies I've seen there. My memories focus more on the layout of the place itself. It's the theater I see in my mind every time I read a novel and a character walks into a theater.

I can be in another theater as the advertisement for that particular brand of theater starts up to convince the movie-going public that it has created the best movie-going experience because because their pop fizzes more than any other theater and because their sound system is superior, and my mind automatically goes back to the theater that is about to close.

It has sort of become the reference point in my mind for all movie theaters. And that won't change once they close the place and/or tear it down.