I have enjoyed watching Heath Ledger ever since that funky little Arthurian movie he made when he was about twelve (or eighteen, or something). He just looked so.. earnest. And nice. He was handsome, certainly, but mostly I was drawn to his openness and clear spirit.
I trotted along, merrily knowing that Heath was out there doing his moviemaking thing, right up until Brokeback Mountain came along. Now, I am fine with Brokeback, and I think both he and Jake Gyllenhaal did a great job. But frankly, it wasn't the plot I was viciously following when I watched it. No, it was the character development, and of course, the crazy choices.
I grant you, Heath has such a handsome, angular face -- more angles in his face than most geometry textbooks, thank you -- and such a wide-open look about him that I had a hard time buying into him as a secret homosexual. He is a very good actor, so I did buy into the troubled layer of Tough Guy over top of his secret emotional space. Jake was even easier, except that his Stoic Man seemed more careless than stilted. And what else is stoicism besides emotion with a hard set to it?
In any case, I just wanted them to come out, admit their affair, and then buy a cute little place in Wyoming they could do up nicely. There are plenty of men in the Bay Area who could have shown them how it's done: shabby chic windows, fabulous paint, and some very cool lighting and accessories... sigh.
But, obviously, this movie wasn't really about them. No, really, it wasn't. It was about the cultural norms that drove their natural tendencies into a sharp, ninety-degree problem. Really, now, in San Francisco this would all have worked itself out so neatly. (Can you say "Leather Bar"? I knew you could.) Now, I admit that I find absolutely nothing wrong with the human desire to love and be loved, whether that takes the shape of homosexuality or not. I do have trouble with people lying to themselves and others, however, and this is what made the movie so captivating: had these men lived somewhere other than Wyoming, the emergence of their feelings for one another could have taken shape as an interesting dimension of their personal lives, adding depth and human interest. The love affair could have permeated the atmosphere like so much food for gossip, swilled over coffee or cocktails while Heath, in a fetching black sweater, earnestly leans over a spot-lit marble table and asks a girlfriend, "Do you really think he could be The One?"
The depth you can get out of analyzing what person is Really Right for You is amazing. Unfortunately, we didn't even get that far.
I don't know if it's just me, but there was almost a forced shallowness about their relationship. Not that it was shallow, but it was somehow robbed, not allowed to breathe. Like a red wine guiltily broken open and consumed when a little too cold, with no time to breathe, that's how they loved. I suppose what makes me sad is that, like wine, love should be uncorked, given time to breathe, carefully poured into beautiful glasses at a well-lit table, and then savored with delightful food. It shouldn't be crammed into a stolen moments of freedom.
I grew up in Montana, where it seemed that many real moments were quickly reshaped into something Socially Acceptable, so perhaps this truncation is particularly saddening to me. After all, Montana and Wyoming are just a hop, skip, and jump away. Though Wyo's red deserts are more captivating to me than Montana's endlessness.
That's it, I think. There is opportunity, almost, to dive in, head first, to a deep and clear lake, beautiful, dangerous, and wet. And somehow you end up splashing around in the shallow end of a small swimming pool. So much promised depth, so much time wasted on the top three inches of water. It reminds me of walking out at the beach, where pools of shallow water soon get filled with dead seaweed, algae, and the like. Those pools aren't cleaned by tides and waves; that shallow water starts to stink very quickly.
Somehow, these emotional truncations remind me of trotting all your stuff out to the beach, setting up a lovely table with dinner, and sipping a glass of wine while watching the tide pool. For about an hour, a tide pool is interesting to watch. After that, though, it just starts to stink. And you find yourself watching the ocean, where the waves take down everything in their path, instead of being trapped by old curmudgeons of sand. Who doesn't find the ocean so much more relaxing?
I don't live in Montana anymore; that pool, for me, began to stink. Perhaps in general, I find that watching people trapped in lives too small for them is awkward at best. Even in the movies.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Prepping to Go to California: Part II
Happy Birthday to Me today! Hooray!
So, moving to California....
We'd been planning this move for a while, but the free time to actually carry it out never materialized. My husband was (and still is) buried under some side work he was finishing up. That more than took up the two weeks we'd scheduled to have him off, plus nights and weekends since. So he would emerge from the basement occasionally to eat, use the bathroom, and remind our son who Daddy was whilst I packed. And of course, the side work was "For a Good Cause," and part of a longstanding relationship we couldn't just break out of at the last minute.
It was going all right until the other two people involved got a whiff of how much stress the project was under, and then they both flew away as fast as they could, not wanting to put themselves in a situation in which they were underpaid, underappreciated, and then overworked. Can't say as I blame them. But it does mean my husband is now the sole owner of all this junk. Sigh. Even an extra two hours per week from one other person would make a huge difference. But once the fingers are burned, never a charred digit did program.
Anyway, so my husband is basically AWL (Absent with leave) from the moving process, I'm uber-pregnant, and our two-year-old is hyped up, knowing that something is going on but not sure what it all means or how to handle it. It's all a blur, but I do know that the day before I threw a bunch of papers into a bag so that they wouldn't get packed away in an anonymous box. We also stacked a pile of stuff to take down in the car -- ladies who are eight months pregnant cannot fly, they must drive -- and taped to the wall a big note saying, "Do not pack!" Then we threw everything out of the fridge that we couldn't give away, took out everything we still had that was intended for Goodwill, and filled up two trash cans with bits of trash from every which spot.
But, somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, it all gets figured out and moving day arrives.
On moving day, I showed the foreman what all we wanted to have packed. He thought we had 10,000 pounds of stuff (actually we had 9,500 - so darn good guess). We'd only budgeted for 7,500, so we hoped it didn't come out to much more than that. (It didn't.) The foreman started his team of five people in the backyard, with the shed and patio. That took a couple of hours. Then they moved into the garage and kitchen. My husband had ruthlessly pruned the garage, thank goodness, so there were only tools and essential things to pack. The kitchen was pretty straightforward, but I came to understand that 20 boxes of kitchen stuff is not unrealistic when you fill about half the box with packing material. I stared at what looked like a pretty blatant waste of material, but then relaxed, knowing that packing costs were fixed, and these boxes did have to live through being stacked to the ceiling in the truck, unpacked in storage, packed back up two weeks later, and then unpacked in our new house. So I shrugged and just watched.
Whoops! Then it turns out that the movers can't pack anything that's been "opened." So I packed what had been opened, and they marked it "Packed By Owner." By this time, Mom took my son on a walk, and on the way picked up protein bars for the Red Bull team. I was afraid they would crash about 3 pm, collapsing on top of packed furniture and unpacked computer parts. (They did not stop for lunch.)
So here we are, one big pregnant lady, five burly men, and enough paper to pack up three million dollars' worth of china, all madly stuffing boxes full of stuff.
So, moving to California....
We'd been planning this move for a while, but the free time to actually carry it out never materialized. My husband was (and still is) buried under some side work he was finishing up. That more than took up the two weeks we'd scheduled to have him off, plus nights and weekends since. So he would emerge from the basement occasionally to eat, use the bathroom, and remind our son who Daddy was whilst I packed. And of course, the side work was "For a Good Cause," and part of a longstanding relationship we couldn't just break out of at the last minute.
It was going all right until the other two people involved got a whiff of how much stress the project was under, and then they both flew away as fast as they could, not wanting to put themselves in a situation in which they were underpaid, underappreciated, and then overworked. Can't say as I blame them. But it does mean my husband is now the sole owner of all this junk. Sigh. Even an extra two hours per week from one other person would make a huge difference. But once the fingers are burned, never a charred digit did program.
Anyway, so my husband is basically AWL (Absent with leave) from the moving process, I'm uber-pregnant, and our two-year-old is hyped up, knowing that something is going on but not sure what it all means or how to handle it. It's all a blur, but I do know that the day before I threw a bunch of papers into a bag so that they wouldn't get packed away in an anonymous box. We also stacked a pile of stuff to take down in the car -- ladies who are eight months pregnant cannot fly, they must drive -- and taped to the wall a big note saying, "Do not pack!" Then we threw everything out of the fridge that we couldn't give away, took out everything we still had that was intended for Goodwill, and filled up two trash cans with bits of trash from every which spot.
But, somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, it all gets figured out and moving day arrives.
On moving day, I showed the foreman what all we wanted to have packed. He thought we had 10,000 pounds of stuff (actually we had 9,500 - so darn good guess). We'd only budgeted for 7,500, so we hoped it didn't come out to much more than that. (It didn't.) The foreman started his team of five people in the backyard, with the shed and patio. That took a couple of hours. Then they moved into the garage and kitchen. My husband had ruthlessly pruned the garage, thank goodness, so there were only tools and essential things to pack. The kitchen was pretty straightforward, but I came to understand that 20 boxes of kitchen stuff is not unrealistic when you fill about half the box with packing material. I stared at what looked like a pretty blatant waste of material, but then relaxed, knowing that packing costs were fixed, and these boxes did have to live through being stacked to the ceiling in the truck, unpacked in storage, packed back up two weeks later, and then unpacked in our new house. So I shrugged and just watched.
Whoops! Then it turns out that the movers can't pack anything that's been "opened." So I packed what had been opened, and they marked it "Packed By Owner." By this time, Mom took my son on a walk, and on the way picked up protein bars for the Red Bull team. I was afraid they would crash about 3 pm, collapsing on top of packed furniture and unpacked computer parts. (They did not stop for lunch.)
So here we are, one big pregnant lady, five burly men, and enough paper to pack up three million dollars' worth of china, all madly stuffing boxes full of stuff.
Prepping to Go to California: Part I
It's been quite a while since I've posted anything here, and the following update should explain that quite clearly.
First, I'm having another baby in THREE WEEKS. This means I have been Really Darn Pregnant for quite a few weeks. But I do have surprising energy, which is good. Particularly good, that energy, because here's what I've been doing since the end of August:
1. Arranging to become my father's conservator. Not easy. He was in a very serious car accident at the end of April and now needs some help getting his feet and cerebellum back underneath him. He was always the brilliant but absentminded professor type, and now he really falls into the "excused absence" camp. He was in a coma for over two weeks, had brain surgery, and then rapidly and tumultuously came out of his coma and rocketed back into daily life, albeit in a very off-center sort of way. Think of someone walking around at an 18-degree angle, and that's about where we are. The most noticeable piece is that he has skipped from robust middle age to old age in a matter of four months. He's now a Grumpy Old Man, and behaves as such. Grump grump grump..
2. Managing the nine thousand people who want money for Dad's stuff but don't have it. And since I cannot sign his checks yet, I have far less hair than usual. However, since one does stop losing hair during pregnancy, I think it's nearly evened out. Let's hope that when my hair starts falling out again post-pregnancy I get credit for previously-removed strands.
3. Prepping for the entire family (me, my husband, and my two-year-old) to move several hundred miles from rainy Portland to sunny Northern California. My husband has been down in California since August 25th. So I was prepping a three-bedroom house with a full basement, garage, and storage shed to be moved. Yes, we had movers, but have you seen how movers pack? Three shovels and one cylindrical metal tool about shovel-height were all put into a single large wardrobe box. So basically you have four tall brooms taking up as much space in a box as half the contents of my closet. Not exactly efficient. Further, when we did a check, we noticed interesting inconsistencies, such as that the patio table legs were packed, but the table top itself was sitting quite jauntily on the patio. I do not know how they missed that. (Though the cans of Red Bull - empty - I picked up and recycled gave me a strong clue.) In any case, I spent many weeks trying hard to get rid of things we didn't need, organize what we did want to keep, and somehow have everything well-enough set up so that five non-English speaking movers could come in and pack up our house, my husband's office, and all our stuff without me. I may have been present, but who can help five burly men hopped up on Red Bull all at once? Considering my exceedingly limited Spanish, I thought it went quite well.
So picture me, waddling around with my big tummy, attempting to chase a two-year-old (who far outstrips my top speed at the moment) while also attempting to put everything we own either into boxes or into piles that would later be put into boxes. Tip: never pack a toy or clothing box while the child is in the room. I repacked the same box four times before I got wise. And then TAPE IT UP IMMEDIATELY! Wow, was he ever angry when he figured out he could not open the box. If you have ever witnessed a two-year-old trying hard to get to one of his favorite toys, when he knows RIGHT where it is, and you are the reason he can't have it, you know what I mean.
It went much like this:
1. Sort kitchen. Keep this, toss that, put this in a pile to take to Goodwill. Put this box aside for E., this box for S., and this one for B. Now I have boxes for me, Goodwill, and all my friends. And I have sorted just two cabinets. Hmm.
2. Sort my half of our bedroom. Since I am pregnant, I have "Pregnant Clothes," and "Just Post-Pregnant, Baggy Clothes," and "Skinny-Post-Pregnant, When-I've-Lost-All-That-Ice-Cream-Weight Clothes," and "I Will Never Wear These Clothes." So once I had sorted Maternity, Baggy, and Skinny (labels I thought of later), I then had the fourth category to haul to Goodwill. Yet, at this exact moment, all my friends announced their intentions to pick through them and take some. Now, I knew this was a recipe for disaster, because I would be running something like a free store, with all my friends expecting that I wouldn't give them away until they'd had a chance to look at them. I would have to maintain a spot for them, in the midst of all the packing, and keep them from getting strewn all over the house. Now, this is next to impossible to do, especially with my son, who thinks that clothing left out is intended for him to play with. No, I would have discarded clothing covering every surface in the house, and some would no longer be wearable.
So, I didn't tell anyone, I just took many boxes to Goodwill. I then prepped myself that when my friends called, I would stare at them wide-eyed and say, "What clothes?" You know what? They didn't call. Now that I've moved, I'm safe in saying that they had to go, should anyone call. (Female signaling behavior is never so easily mapped as when clothing is free. If I'd been charging for them, I'd have had a line at my door.) In any case, here's my recommendation for women who are moving: don't tell anyone. Just move. Keep the same phone number. Give the new renters or owners some cards to hand out when your friends show up at your ex-house. Then just be surprised when they call and query you. "Oh, yes, isn't it exciting??" you gush, "we just LOVE our new place! Come on over and see it!" If you move out of state, tell everyone very early on, and then announce a good-bye dinner five days before you leave. There will be no time for anyone to ask for a slow, leisurely picking-over. Of course, if you have friends who will just take everything and sort it out later, call these people immediately and often! Ply them with food and drink! And forward them on to me.
3. Break down. Cry. Eat some chocolate. Stare helplessly at the Stuff that has rapidly become Baggage. Read my son a story. Cry some more. Then eat something, and prepare to move on to the next room.
Repeat these three steps. Don't forget to stock up on chocolate. (For those of you who've never experienced pregnancy, or experienced it vicariously, please note that emotional swings, food cravings, fatigue, and strange behaviors are all normal. You must add these to your stress quotient. Divide by 3.2, and then multiply by ten. This is your expected stress level.)
In my next post... Moving day finally arrived!
First, I'm having another baby in THREE WEEKS. This means I have been Really Darn Pregnant for quite a few weeks. But I do have surprising energy, which is good. Particularly good, that energy, because here's what I've been doing since the end of August:
1. Arranging to become my father's conservator. Not easy. He was in a very serious car accident at the end of April and now needs some help getting his feet and cerebellum back underneath him. He was always the brilliant but absentminded professor type, and now he really falls into the "excused absence" camp. He was in a coma for over two weeks, had brain surgery, and then rapidly and tumultuously came out of his coma and rocketed back into daily life, albeit in a very off-center sort of way. Think of someone walking around at an 18-degree angle, and that's about where we are. The most noticeable piece is that he has skipped from robust middle age to old age in a matter of four months. He's now a Grumpy Old Man, and behaves as such. Grump grump grump..
2. Managing the nine thousand people who want money for Dad's stuff but don't have it. And since I cannot sign his checks yet, I have far less hair than usual. However, since one does stop losing hair during pregnancy, I think it's nearly evened out. Let's hope that when my hair starts falling out again post-pregnancy I get credit for previously-removed strands.
3. Prepping for the entire family (me, my husband, and my two-year-old) to move several hundred miles from rainy Portland to sunny Northern California. My husband has been down in California since August 25th. So I was prepping a three-bedroom house with a full basement, garage, and storage shed to be moved. Yes, we had movers, but have you seen how movers pack? Three shovels and one cylindrical metal tool about shovel-height were all put into a single large wardrobe box. So basically you have four tall brooms taking up as much space in a box as half the contents of my closet. Not exactly efficient. Further, when we did a check, we noticed interesting inconsistencies, such as that the patio table legs were packed, but the table top itself was sitting quite jauntily on the patio. I do not know how they missed that. (Though the cans of Red Bull - empty - I picked up and recycled gave me a strong clue.) In any case, I spent many weeks trying hard to get rid of things we didn't need, organize what we did want to keep, and somehow have everything well-enough set up so that five non-English speaking movers could come in and pack up our house, my husband's office, and all our stuff without me. I may have been present, but who can help five burly men hopped up on Red Bull all at once? Considering my exceedingly limited Spanish, I thought it went quite well.
So picture me, waddling around with my big tummy, attempting to chase a two-year-old (who far outstrips my top speed at the moment) while also attempting to put everything we own either into boxes or into piles that would later be put into boxes. Tip: never pack a toy or clothing box while the child is in the room. I repacked the same box four times before I got wise. And then TAPE IT UP IMMEDIATELY! Wow, was he ever angry when he figured out he could not open the box. If you have ever witnessed a two-year-old trying hard to get to one of his favorite toys, when he knows RIGHT where it is, and you are the reason he can't have it, you know what I mean.
It went much like this:
1. Sort kitchen. Keep this, toss that, put this in a pile to take to Goodwill. Put this box aside for E., this box for S., and this one for B. Now I have boxes for me, Goodwill, and all my friends. And I have sorted just two cabinets. Hmm.
2. Sort my half of our bedroom. Since I am pregnant, I have "Pregnant Clothes," and "Just Post-Pregnant, Baggy Clothes," and "Skinny-Post-Pregnant, When-I've-Lost-All-That-Ice-Cream-Weight Clothes," and "I Will Never Wear These Clothes." So once I had sorted Maternity, Baggy, and Skinny (labels I thought of later), I then had the fourth category to haul to Goodwill. Yet, at this exact moment, all my friends announced their intentions to pick through them and take some. Now, I knew this was a recipe for disaster, because I would be running something like a free store, with all my friends expecting that I wouldn't give them away until they'd had a chance to look at them. I would have to maintain a spot for them, in the midst of all the packing, and keep them from getting strewn all over the house. Now, this is next to impossible to do, especially with my son, who thinks that clothing left out is intended for him to play with. No, I would have discarded clothing covering every surface in the house, and some would no longer be wearable.
So, I didn't tell anyone, I just took many boxes to Goodwill. I then prepped myself that when my friends called, I would stare at them wide-eyed and say, "What clothes?" You know what? They didn't call. Now that I've moved, I'm safe in saying that they had to go, should anyone call. (Female signaling behavior is never so easily mapped as when clothing is free. If I'd been charging for them, I'd have had a line at my door.) In any case, here's my recommendation for women who are moving: don't tell anyone. Just move. Keep the same phone number. Give the new renters or owners some cards to hand out when your friends show up at your ex-house. Then just be surprised when they call and query you. "Oh, yes, isn't it exciting??" you gush, "we just LOVE our new place! Come on over and see it!" If you move out of state, tell everyone very early on, and then announce a good-bye dinner five days before you leave. There will be no time for anyone to ask for a slow, leisurely picking-over. Of course, if you have friends who will just take everything and sort it out later, call these people immediately and often! Ply them with food and drink! And forward them on to me.
3. Break down. Cry. Eat some chocolate. Stare helplessly at the Stuff that has rapidly become Baggage. Read my son a story. Cry some more. Then eat something, and prepare to move on to the next room.
Repeat these three steps. Don't forget to stock up on chocolate. (For those of you who've never experienced pregnancy, or experienced it vicariously, please note that emotional swings, food cravings, fatigue, and strange behaviors are all normal. You must add these to your stress quotient. Divide by 3.2, and then multiply by ten. This is your expected stress level.)
In my next post... Moving day finally arrived!
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