I’m fat. I know it. I’m not ignoring the fact that my weight is incredibly unhealthy and probably will cause a myriad of problems with my organs and glands if I don’t rectify it sooner rather than later. I haven’t been living under a rock, so I’ve read all the studies showing how much obesity costs in the long run in healthcare costs and how life expectancy suffers for those who are unhealthy. I’m lucky so far that I haven’t been diagnosed with diabetes or any number of other disorders that afflict the obese.

Body acceptance is a way of telling myself that I am not a worthless piece of shit. It’s a way of accepting that this is how I am at this moment, and that I am a worthwhile human being, even though I haven’t made the best choices for myself in the last seven years or so. This wasn’t an overnight journey, and I know that. So, I am endeavoring to accept my body for what it is. It is a reflection of the last seven years of my life, and the choices that I made during those seven years. I  can’t deny that it happened, but I can choose to try not to hate myself for it. Hate and self-loathing in the past have only led m into a deeper spiral of poor decisions. It’s hard to decide to do anything positive for yourself when you hate how you look and think you’re worthless because you can’t manage to make good and healthy choices.

So, I have chosen to embrace body acceptance. I am embracing myself for what I am and also for what I can and will be. I’m making better choices for myself and for my future. I am a worthwhile human being despite my fat. I am beautiful and feminine. I am also obese. That last bit? That’s the one that has to go. The rest can stay. But I’m accepting the obesity along with the rest of it. They say the first step toward recovery is admitting that you have a problem. I’ve already done that. Now I’m remembering that beneath the problem is a person. That person is a human being just like any other. She’s one who has problems with portion control, a penchant for junk foods and a massive sweet tooth. Yep. Those are there, too. I’m me, and I’m learning to accept my bad along with my good.

What this message of personal body acceptance should not be misconstrued as is fat apology. I am not making excuses for why I got fat. I got fat because I made bad decisions. I am not saying that obesity is good in any way, shape or form. I have experienced many hardships as a result of being obese. I can’t shop in regular stores and half the time have to shop online. This leads to headaches for returns if things don’t fit or if the wrong item is sent. It’s not fun, let me assure you. I have to have a seatbelt extender on an airplane and in most theaters, I spend at least 30% of my attention trying not to encroach on anyone else’s space. It’s not fun, and I’ve ruined a number of situations for myself by sheer merit of being fat. I am not unapologetically fat. I understand that my fat has ramifications for myself as well as for others.

Fat apology has a tendency to be somewhat abrasive. It’s fat people fighting back against the public shaming that many of us have endured for (often) years and years. I’m not saying it’s okay to react in such a way, but it’s similar to other groups reacting negatively, defensively and abrasively to similar situations. These people have become so sick of being shamed for their fat that they have decided to buck the trend and instead of fighting against it, they accept it. They say, “It’s okay to be fat. It’s my choice after all, isn’t it?” I can’t get behind this mentality, even though I can understand some of the reasoning behind it. It is a form of body acceptance, but not, in my opinion, a very healthy one.

It’s not easy to be fat. Obesity rates are rising exponentially in western civilizations. We are getting fatter faster and younger. There is a huge backlash against those who are fat, as if we are somehow mentally deficient. Most of us have an unhealthy relationship with food; that much is obvious. The fat shaming that tends to go on from people who are thin either by their own volition (hard work in the form of exercise and calorie restriction) or by the blessing of biology does not help most of us abolish this unhealthy relationship with food. Teasing me or ridiculing me because I’m fat really only makes me feel worse about myself. As I feel worse about myself, I feel less like I’m worth the effort it would take to change the cycle of obesity. And then I get fatter. This tactic is not helping people. Walking around degrading fatties and teasing people who are fat is ignorant. Who are you to know what these people are doing?

I am obese. Yep. But in the last month, I’ve changed my diet and begun to exercise. I’ve started drinking more water and keeping an eye on the nutrients that I take in. If  I were to pass someone on the street, he or she might choose to ridicule me for being fat without knowing the changes that I’ve made. The fat didn’t go on quickly, so I know it won’t come off quickly. It’s a slow process, particularly since I’m actively trying not to over-fatigue myself or injure myself. Many of the fat people who are shamed could be making poor decisions. They may have already started making the change. Perhaps they’ve changed from a diet of fast food and junk to one involving lots of fresh vegetables and lean meats. Maybe they’ve already lost 20 pounds. There’s no way for a stranger to know that.

The looks that come with being fat are not easy to take. It’s embarrassing to have someone see me and cringe, as if I am a behemoth made of fat and ugliness, as if there are no redeeming qualities about me. I know there are, and the stranger does not, of course. But what if I were to look at them with the same disgust? That’s not okay. Of course it’s not okay. I don’t know them, or their story, just like they don’t know mine. The only part of my story that they know is that I’ve made some unhealthy choices about food and that I’m not, perhaps, as active as I should be. The very idea that a person deserves the right to judge me for that without knowing me is offensive. The fact that these people can judge me and think that I’m not doing anything for myself or that I think the fat is okay or even great is offensive. The very idea that body acceptance is the same as fat acceptance is offensive to me.

I am accepting my body in its current form. I accept it for all of its flaws and for all of its fat. I acknowledge that I am unhealthy. I acknowledge that my unhealthiness has ramifications for others. I am beautiful despite these things. My body is okay the way it is, but it can be much, much better. From here forward, I am making the decision to do better for myself and my body for the sake of longevity and a more active lifestyle. It’s hard to be active after not being active for so long, so I’m taking baby steps toward being able to walk around Walt Disney World all day without feeling like I’m ready to keel over at the end of the day.

My body is okay the way it is. It could be much better, and it will get much better. I’m awesome the way I am. And now it’s time to become even more awesome.

People feel very strongly about what the “right” way is to give birth (natural versus with the assistance of drugs versus c-section), and what the right way is to nurse your child and bring them up. There are the people who feel like breastfeeding should be out there in the open for all to see, arguing that the baby shouldn’t have to be hidden just because it eats “naturally.” The people who think that those who bottle-feed for any reason are lazy and gave up on the natural way. There are people who very obviously look down on anyone who had to have a c-section for any reason, or who had drugs to assist the very painful process of vaginal birth.  The more I read, the angrier I get, not because people aren’t entitled to their opinions about what is best for them and their child, but because they are projecting those beliefs onto everyone else and making bad situations worse by making women feel guilty who, for one reason or another, did not or could not do it the way that the advocates believe is the best.

I am not an expert when it comes to having children. The closest I come is having a monthly period, and that’s, well, exactly the opposite of pregnancy. So I’m as close to it as the north pole is to the south pole, really. I do, however, have some strong opinions about it, despite not having done it myself. I was around for all of my step-mother’s first pregnancy, and also around for the early stages of my older half-sister’s life. I witnessed the nine months of morning (noon and night) sickness, the changes that she went through, and then the “aftermath”, so to speak. (She was born by c-section because she was breech and they couldn’t turn her, so right there, her pregnancy gets discounted by a lot of people online. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, you know?) I was there when the lactation specialist visited, and I was there helping when we made baby food for the baby. She wasn’t my child, but I was a major part of her life for her first ten months or so until I moved out after my graduation. So I was there for that part.

It doesn’t take a genius to take in the norms that emerge when it comes to having a baby. For instance, babies are going to poop. It happens. They spit up, they pee, they poop, they drool, they snot, they make messes with their food. It’s normal. They pretty much control the schedule for the first part of their lives, too. The fully-developed humans work around the schedule of the baby and go through sleep deprivation and lack of showers in order to facilitate the normal growth and development of this tiny, in development human being. These are the things which seem to be standard across normal early parenthood. And that’s where the “norms” stop. After that, everyone has their own way of dealing with aspect of it. Cloth diapers or disposable? Breastfeeding or formula? Jars of baby food or homemade? Do you do baby swim lessons? Do you listen to Mozart for hours to facilitate development? At this point, I have to shrug and say, “Hell if I know.”

What really bugs me is that it seems to me that parenthood is a very personal thing. I can understand giving advice and anecdotal evidence when requested to do so, but there are so many people who are willing to give out advice without being asked, or going far beyond the request so as to be pushy about it. The thread I was reading devolved into a bunch of people going back and forth about what they experienced and what was the “right” way of doing something. All of this, of course, without taking into consideration that there are plenty of reasons that it might not work or be able to work that way for any other person. It takes all kinds of people and situations to make up the world, and for as many pregnancies there are, that’s how many different parenting and child-rearing styles there are likely to be. I feel like as long as the child in question is growing up as healthy and strong as possible, it shouldn’t matter whether mom is able to breastfeed or whether she used disposable diapers to catch the refuse.

This kind of advocacy bothers me more than any other kind. It is the same as evangelism in that it doesn’t consider what the audience wants, instead pushing its own view of what’s right regardless of extenuating circumstances or differing opinions. I’m not saying that these people aren’t entitled to their opinions and views. They are every bit as entitled to theirs as I am to mine, but I should be entitled to feel differently than them without feeling persecuted by them for the difference. I guess this comes down to my dislike of someone touting any one idea as the only truth and asserting that all around them should agree.

Ultimately, I had to stop watching the thread. I ignored the user who was pushing the hardest and who started the “argument” (it was very civilized, but I didn’t understand why it had to happen at all), but that doesn’t stop the conversation from happening. I wish the lady who started the thread all the best, and I sincerely hope that she has a smooth pregnancy and that parenthood suits her perfectly. I can’t read the preaching and pushing anymore. That particular user, it seems, is just not willing to let the subject drop until she has somehow proven that she is in the right on each issue on which she believes herself to be an expert. And maybe she is an expert – I have no way of verifying or disproving this claim. But whether she is an expert or not, she is giving her expert advice in a venue that is really inappropriate, since she can have no way of seeing whether her advice is the most appropriate for the people in question. And frankly, it comes across as very judgmental for those who do not adhere to the way of behaving during pregnancy, of birth or of child rearing that she believes is best.

Opinions are all well and good, as is active and healthy discourse about those opinions. It can open up people to ideas that they maybe hadn’t considered before. However, I think we should draw the line at making actual statements of how things “should” be and what is the one and only “best” way of doing anything. Whatever happened to live and let live?

Later, news articles started to show up stating that the epicenter was in Ontario. Or else it was Quebec. Nobody was really sure yet. But they were pretty sure it was either a 5.0 or a 5.5. Really specific, right? Still later, they finally narrowed it down to the Ottowa area on the Ontario/Quebec border. The consensus seems to be that it was a 5.5. It is amazing to me how far away the quake reached. Down to Cincinnati! That’s quite a distance.

Earthquakes aren’t totally new to me. We got a couple in Oregon when I lived there. It was, of course, nothing like what is experienced in California, but we got a few. I remember one that was strong enough to merit evacuating our school until they could assess whether there had been any damage that could endanger our precious teenage lives.  It was otherwise unremarkable. We stood on the football field, whining and bored until they deemed the school safe for us to re-enter. This one wasn’t even that remarkable. Being on the third floor, we experienced some swaying, but people who were on the ground floors of buildings sometimes felt nothing. Johnathan was driving at the time and didn’t feel it at all.

The little earthquake was kind of a fun diversion. There was no real damage to speak of, even, apparently, closer to the epicenter, and nobody died as a result of the shake. We did get a little excitement with people texting friends and relatives to find out whether they felt it or not, and scouring twitter and google for results that would tell us the epicenter and more about how far-reaching it was. Nobody was scared; we all got excited instead. It was kind of like a birthday distraction from the average humdrum of everyday working.

One laundromat was in a city a couple of miles away. It was… okay. Sketchy and old, but cheap. Unfortunately, our very first time there, we ran into disaster with one of the machines. We ended up with some snags on some of our work clothes. The clothes were salvaged, but that was the last time we ever went to that laundromat.

The second is one that Johnathan went to relatively frequently before I moved, and it was our laundromat of choice for a while, for being 24-hours and less expensive than the machines at our complex. It seemed that there were often many broken machines when we were there, though, which made things hard when you need three of washer size A and only two are functioning, particularly if someone else is already using them. So we kept looking for our perfect laundromat.

Johnathan found Leo’s.  We gave it a shot because it seemed newer than the other two places and, hey, it was worth a shot, right? They had a card system which served to simplify things as far as needing quarters. The washers were newer and faster, and there were more of the larger sizes. The dryers were faster. Heaven? We thought so. We saw their ads for laundry drop-off service, and an idea started to form. It seemed extravagant, though, so until a post on Get Rich Slowly about outsourcing parts of your life, we didn’t really consider it. The post talked about how outsourcing daily tasks (cleaning for some, cooking for others, etc) could be financially beneficial in the sense that it frees the person from the hated task, and he or she regains the time that would otherwise be spent on that task. It seemed like an endorsement for us to go ahead and try the laundry drop-off service that was offered. So we did!

The first time we tried it, we had to buy the bag. That was $5, which isn’t really so bad. Then it was about $25 to have the load done. We left it with them and went on our merry way, intending to pick it up the next day. We picked it up and took it home. We were met with a bit of an unpleasant sight when we started to unpack the clothes. A lot of the clothes had mysterious stains on them that looked like grease or oil stains of some kind. We had some irreplaceable shirts stained and some of our work clothes. I was not happy. In fact, I was livid. We took the clothes in, or rather Johnathan did, and talked to the people there. Ultimately, he ended up on the phone with the owner of the place, who offered to send the clothes off to be claimed for insurance (which meant we’d get a lot less than they’re worth and be out the clothes), or we could let one of the attendants try to get the stains out and he could offer us some credit. We took the latter since it meant we might be able to wear the clothes again. The girl was able to get the stains out for the most part, so that was a satisfactory resolution.

The next time we brought in our laundry, nothing went wrong. Hurrah! Unfortunately, the next time we brought the laundry in, we were informed that we couldn’t drop laundry off after 7PM. Really? That seemed odd. The attendant explained that his coworkers would accuse him of not doing his work if we brought it in after that, because he wouldn’t have time to complete it before closing. Well, we thought it was a stupid rule, but accepted it and went home with our full bag of laundry. We dropped it off the next day and got a clean bag of clothes back. A person could get used to that!

Then we had another problem. We dropped off and paid for our laundry to be done and got back… a bag of unwashed clothes. It didn’t get done. This was apparently due to a miscommunication where one employee put the bag in the wrong place and the other didn’t bother to check whether the work had been done. So, more fussing to make sure that the load got done. Then we would get our clothes haphazardly folded. Overdried. Not even folded at all, on occasion. Smelling like no detergent was used.

The last straw came in two parts. The last time we dropped off our laundry, the lady asked Johnathan if he was “the one who tips.” He kind of gave her a funny look, and she went on to say that, oh yeah, people tip all the time! This statement doesn’t jive with the first, since the question was, “are you the guy who tips?” He said he would talk to me about it. I should state now that I think tipping for a service that we are paying for is stupid, so I was absolutely against tipping these people for the consistently inconsistent service we’ve been getting. I tip servers at restaurants because I know they don’t make even the minimum wage that everyone else is paid. I think tipping as a rule is stupid except for when exceptional service is given, and the people at Leo’s Laundromat were certainly not giving it. I mean, we still haven’t gotten all of our credit for our original problem because apparently only one employee even knows how to use the computer. Our name is in the system something like ten times because nobody knows how to use it and apparently nobody cares to learn, either. These people were not helping their case.

We were going to drop off a load of laundry on Monday, and the same lady with the tip comment was there. The first words out of her mouth were not “Hello” or “How’s it going?”, but “Did you talk to your wife about tipping?” Johnathan restrained himself from saying what he really wanted to say (“HOW RUDE!”) and just said, “You know what? Nevermind.” And then we became former customers.

Being expected to tip for a service that we are paying for is a bit ridiculous. I don’t tip the guys who change the oil on my car or the service technician who comes to install internet service at my apartment. I am not tipping for inconsistent laundry service that I am paying for. It is an advertised service that they don’t even do very well. We won’t be going back except maybe to use up the rest of the money on our cards if we absolutely have to do that. We won’t be going back otherwise. We’re going back to the 24-hour place with the creepy lady who asks too many personal questions because at least we know what kind of service we’ll get there.

I’m sad that it happened this way. I still don’t like doing laundry because it takes so long and, well, I just don’t like doing it! But if it means we know our clothes are cleaned, unharmed, unstretched and we don’t have to tip someone for a service we’ve already paid for, I’m for it. We’ll look out for another service, but I’m not hopeful we’ll find any reasonable alternatives. The owner of that laundromat was so nice, but I have to think he must be really disconnected from his property because things there are not exactly running smoothly. It’s a great idea, and their machines are nice, but would I recommend it to anyone else? Not a chance. The swank machines are not worth the headache of dealing with the staff.

Until Sunday.

Sunday, we decided we wanted to go to Panera for an early dinner. We also wanted to go for a bike ride, but wouldn’t really have time because we wasted the morning away sleeping, and our day didn’t really get going until about 3PM. I suggested that we combine the two endeavors, and Johnathan thought that was a pretty good idea. We’ve never ridden our bikes in town before. Whenever we’ve wanted a bike ride, we’ve gone to the metroparks and ridden on the trails there, which is fine, but those aren’t very flat, and well, we’ve seen all the close ones enough before that it’s boring to ride the short lengths. Four or five miles of trail really isn’t much, and the one to Oberlin isn’t very feasible for a weeknight or a short ride. So, this was a nice change, sort of.

It’s about 2.25 miles to Panera from our house. There are sidewalks the whole way, which is nice because there’s a lot of traffic on the streets between our apartment and the restaurant. No problem, right? Most of the way there was okay. We almost had to wait two light cycles because a bunch of cars decided that, despite the fact that we had a “walk” signal, they were more important and had to turn first. I don’t know about anyone else, but I didn’t feel like risking my life just to be able to cross the street. We did go across, but we had to run to make it before the light turned red. I have to say, that really annoyed me. If they had let us get going, they all would have been able to go, and we wouldn’t have had to run the bikes across the street.

We ran into more trouble when we got to another fairly busy intersection. People have a habit of ignoring crosswalks and limit lines alike. There were four cars in the crosswalk to go across a street. We could probably have crossed in front of them all, but the point of the crosswalk is that it’s the safe place for pedestrians (and cyclists, hi!) to cross. If I got hit outside of the crosswalk, even if it’s because I couldn’t walk in the crosswalk because someone was a jerk, it’s ultimately my fault as much as the car’s. The crosswalk is my safe haven as long as I’m crossing when I’m supposed to (walk sign). Cleveland drivers don’t seem to think that the limit line is the first warning to stop, the first line of the crosswalk is the second, and the second line of the crosswalk is the third. And then there are the really big jerks who continue to creep into the intersection on red lights, as if that will cause the light to turn green faster. I’ve seen cars get totally out into the intersection, the whole vehicle past the crosswalk. I mean, really. Don’t be a jerk.

Anyway, once we got past the perils of cars and safely back onto the relatively safe sidewalk, we rode up behind the restaurant. I decided to ride up the tiny grassy hill and coast into the parking lot next to the Panera. It would have been okay if the grass were the same height as the curb, but there was a little dip. It happened really fast, so I’m not 100% on what happened, but I suspect one of my pedals bottomed out, and then my heel did, too, and my bike kind of shuddered and I came to a stop. In the process, I banged up my left index finger. I usually keep the finger on the handle while the other three fingers hover over the brake handle, so when my hand jerked off the handle, it jammed into the mechanism that holds the brake handle up onto the handle. I nicked my knuckle (good gash on it), and I really jammed my finger. I think something hit the muscle in my finger pretty hard, too, because it swelled up and it looked ready to bruise up right away.

An injury on one finger is relatively minor as far as injuries go. I mean, it was the index finger of my dominant hand, but ultimately, it wasn’t broken or anything, and it certainly wasn’t as if I broke my wrist or something. I had some range of movement, and it wasn’t excruciating to try to use it, but any pressure caused pain. So that was fun. I had to figure out how to eat my early dinner without using my left index finger. It was… interesting! I had a feeling of inner instability afterward, as if everything would go wrong if I didn’t stay very, very still and try to do as little as possible. It was a very strange reaction to have to something so simple as jamming a finger. Somehow that simple injury influenced the rest of my day, however.

We did ride our bikes home, but I did everything I could to avoid actively using that finger. It wasn’t as hard as I expected, at least as far as riding home. Typing was interesting, because it hurt to use the finger very actively, and I learned quickly that I had to pay close attention when I was picking things up, because otherwise I would tweak my finger by trying to use it too much. It’s true that you never realize how much you use a part of your body until you can’t anymore. Johnathan was worried that I didn’t just bounce back from the injury and that the swelling didn’t go down much, even after taking ibuprofen. He said that if I hurt enough the next day, we needed to go to the urgent care to get my finger looked at and possibly x-rayed. I agreed. I’ve never been to an urgent care, or at least not in a very long time, so it’s not something I think of doing right away.

Well, I woke up on Monday morning and my finger did not feel at all better. I loaded up with painkillers and it took the edge off, but it certainly wasn’t better. I decided, since it wasn’t feelinf even a tiny bit better, that a trip to ugent care was, after all, necessary. After I got home from work, we headed up to the nearest urgent care center, which also happens to be the facility where my GP’s office is. But that has absolutely nothing to do with this story. I checked in, and probably waited about 20 minutes before they were able to see me. The very nice nurse took me to an examination room and started to get the dtails of what was wrong and what happened. He joked with me a bit, which I appreciated.

We established that my finger was now turning a lovely shade of reddish-bluish-purplish-blackish. In other words, I was developing one major bruise. And it was a beauty. He checked my pulse-ox… stuff, and my blood pressure (better than it was at my last physical, whoo!), and then did a pregnancy test – just in case – before I went off to get some x-rays done. The good news is that I am not pregnant and that I did get some x-rays done.

I went back to my exam room and waited for the doctor. This is the part that amazes me most. The doctor poked and prodded my hand a bit and told me that, thankfully, the x-rays didn’t show any broken bones in my finger. Since I hadn’t fallen, my wrist was given the all-clear, too. He told me it didn’t look like I had torn any ligaments or muscles and that I didn’t appear to have punctured anything. Just a bad bruise. He told me he’d have the nurse come in and put a splint on my finger, and I was to wear that for three to four days, just to help the finger heal, and keep it elevated whenever possible to help with the swelling. And that was that. Then he left. He touched my finger and poked at my wrist, and that’s what he gets paid the big bucks for. Oh well. That’s the system.

The nurse came back, put a splint on my finger and I was free to go. No pain killers – I’ll just use OTC stuff as necessary – and just a splint to help immobilize it. It’s helping with the pain already. Although, I have to say, I kind of look like a dweeb.

So, this has been my adventure this week. Do you know how hard it is to type when your dominant index finger is in a splint? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s really hard. I can’t wait until my finger is healed. You can bet I won’t be haphazardly riding off any curbs, however short, in the future.

Fifteen years ago, the very first Toy Story film came out. I was ten years old, and I remember going to the theater to see it. I remember being amazed at how real everything looked, and loving the story. I thought Woody was the best toy ever, and Rex was one cool dude. I remember getting toys from Burger King, of all places, and playing with them a lot. (They were hand-puppets. Possibly the coolest kid’s meal toys that ever existed.)

In 1999, I was 14. Toy Story 2 came out and my mom again took us to see it. I remember being amazed that not only was it good (and sequels had a bad reputation by that time), but it was just as good if not better than the original! How could they manage such a feat? And then they released it with bloopers a couple of weeks later, and back to the theater I went, for the sole purpose of seeing it with the blooper reel at the end. It probably didn’t hurt that I loved the movie.

For the last eleven years, I’ve been enjoying both Toy Story and Toy Story 2, thinking that was all there was to the franchise, and thinking that was just fine. I was okay with Andy staying a kid in my imagination. And then I heard that there was going to be Toy Story 3. I was immediately skeptical. I mean, Pixar managed to capture lightning in a bottle twice with the Toy Story, erm, story. Could they really expect to do it a third time? Some of my fears were put to rest when we accidentally got to be part of a Q&A with Lee Unkrich, the director of Toy Story 3, at a screening of The Pixar Story at the Cleveland International Film Festival in March, 2008. He was so excited about Toy Story 3, about 3D, about all the things that both Disney and Pixar would be doing in the future, that it was impossible to decry the company as an imminent failure and the movie as dreck. (Not that I would ever, ever say such a thing! Perish the thought! Ahem.)

Since I now follow Lee Unkrich on Twitter, it was only natural to get excited as I heard him enthusing about the various stages of production over the last year or so. He posted countdowns, letting us know that Toy Story 3 was only months away, and then weeks, then days from release. How could I not get excited? Excitement, however, only leads to more worry, as it can often lead to the horrible feeling of anticipointment. (See: Ponyo.) I knew that we would have to see the movie on opening day, though. I couldn’t risk having the movie spoiled for me, and I definitely wanted to enjoy this movie without any expectations as to what the plot had in store (other than as seen in the trailer, of course).

On release day, we showed up at Crocker Park for our 9PM showing maybe a little early. We’re talking two hours early. Whoops. Radio Disney had a booth set up outside the theater where they were giving away prizes and encouraging all the kids to come and dance. I’m sure it was a major boon for the theaters those kids were in that they’d been dancing in the hot sun for a while and were likely to be slightly more subdued by the time they got in to the movie. Or maybe it just riled them up even more. Who knows? We hung out in the Borders next door for a while, and then about an hour ahead, walked over to the movie theater. We got a drink, and sat for a few, expecting to be let in probably forty to forty-five minutes early. We tried to go in, and the boy said that it would be about twenty minutes before he could let us in. Oh! Eventually a line formed for the Toy Story 3 showing in 3D, theater 6. We got let in at around 8:45, and some people ran to the theater as if all the seats would run out before they got there. We got seats in the back and settled in for the start of the movie.

First, I’d like to commend those who worked on the short. I loved it. Day & Night was charming and interesting, and while it’s obvious that it was Pixars traditional computer animation, it also had a feeling of some of the drawn cartoons that I watched as a kid. The combination was really neat. I loved the use of sound effects, too – it was clever and well-done.

We saw Toy Story 3 both in 2D and 3D. We saw the 3D first, so that factors more into my thoughts about the film at the moment. The opening Pixar logo in 3D was really fun. It had such depth, and the way that it was rendered wasn’t gimmicky at all. Really – one of the things that stood out to me was the opening logo. Weird? Maybe. But it was cool! Then, after waiting for three years (since hearing of the film at The Pixar Story), it was finally time to see Toy Story 3.

The movie starts with an action-adventure feeling, featuring all of Andy’s toys. It’s difficult to know why this is going on at first, but it was exciting to watch the toys in action sequences more fitting for the kinds of characters that they are. Wild west, anyone? We find out later that it’s Andy’s imagination as he’s playing with his toys, and then he gets interrupted by mom with her video camera. It’s a sweet opening sequence, reminding us of the Andy that the toys (and we, by proxy) loved in Toy Story and Toy Story 2. Then we come to real time. Andy is grown up. He has graduated from high school and is off to college in a matter of days. The toys make a last-ditch effort to draw his attention to the toy box in which they have languished for years, waiting for him to realize how important they are to him. And it doesn’t work.

Andy’s mom shows up and gives him an ultimatum: he needs to sort through his stuff before he leaves to college. College, attic and trash are the categories he has to choose from, and with a heavy sigh, he decides to make some hard decisions about his toys. They’re going into the attic, with the exception of Woody, who’s going to college with him. But then – disaster strikes! Of course it does, it’s a movie! Andy is silly enough to put the toys into a trash bag to put them into the attic, but he is distracted by Molly, who is taking a box of her own old toys downstairs to be donated to Sunnyside daycare. He helps her take the box downstairs and leaves his bag on the floor, right under the stairs to the attic. Mom finds them and assumes the bag is trash. Because … it’s a trash bag. And it’s on the floor. What else is she going to assume?

The toys are being thrown out! They start freaking out! They manage to use Rex’s tail and escape from the trash bag, just in time not to be picked up by the garbage man (cameo: Sid Phillips! I love how self-referential Pixar films are). They do their usual “hide under something and run” trick to get into the garage, where they get into Andy’s mom’s car and deposit themselves into the donation box. Woody tries to talk them out of it, assuring them that they were meant for the attic, not the dump, but nobody believes him (as usual!), and they all end up en route to Sunnyside.

Now we have the plot and the conflict, and I’ll leave you at that. I don’t want to summarize the whole movie because it feels much more clinical than actually watching it. No amount of summary could do justice to this movie.

Toy Story 3 is really a celebration of everything that Pixar is capable of, and of how far it has come in the fifteen years that they’ve been producing feature films. It’s amazing to me to watch and see that the screws on Buzz look so real that they could have been film instead of animation. The attention to detail is, as always, incredible. It’s a beautiful movie as far as the rendering is concerned. But the beauty doesn’t end there – it also has a beautiful story. Andy grows up and goes to college, but the toys are given new hope for the future; hope that they’ll be played with and enjoyed for years to come by a kid just as wonderful as Andy himself. (I know, I spoiled that bit. I gave a warning waaaaaay up at the top that I would!) It was so sweet to watch her, and also to think about the precious toys that I have had packed away since I grew too old to play with them and also too old to have them on display. (It’s maybe weird for a married alm0st-twenty-five-year-old to have her stuffed animals out for viewing.) I pulled Holly bear out of her box when I got home after seeing the movie on Friday night. I slept with her for the first time since probably high school, maybe longer. She smells the same as I remember – like whatever fabric softener my mom used to use when she’d wash the bear for the umpteenth time. I thought about Andy giving up his toys, and it made me emotional all over again. Could I do that with Holly? Not a chance.

Two days later, I can’t even adequately describe how the movie made me feel. I laughed, I cried (3D glasses are good for hiding the tears, but they do nothing for muffling the sniffles that accompany), I got nervous and excited. It was 103 minutes of movie bliss. We saw the movie again yesterday with Johnathan’s mom, and I’m going to suggest we go to see it at the drive-in next weekend (we did the same with both Wall-E and Up), so that we can talk during the film and nobody will get mad at us for it.

My favorite moment while watching the movie for the first time came not from the movie itself, but from the two or three year old girl who was sitting next to us. She really didn’t have a whisper voice, or even an inside voice, which was pretty annoying most of the time. She redeemed herself only by saying possibly the most funny thing I’ve ever heard a child say at just the right moment. In reference to a scene with Mr. Potato Head: “He looks more like Mr. PoTaco head!” I had to stifle my giggles because the moment onscreen was definitely not as funny as what I had heard. Yes, little girl, he did look like Mr. PoTaco head!

I loved Toy Story 3. So much. There’s really nothing else I can say in praise of this wonderful movie. Can you believe that Pixar has done it eleven times now? Eleven successes! Way to go, Pixar!

I remember hearing that Disney was bringing back their 2D animation studio, and was pretty happy about that until I heard that the first thing out of the gates was going to be another princess movie. It was to feature a black princess, which excited people for about ten seconds before they started complaining. Why is her prince not black? Her name isn’t black enough! Etc, etc, etc. Drama. Walt Disney World was laden with banners and advertisements for the upcoming release of the film, and I really wasn’t all that excited about it. Usually I’m on board with seeing films in the theater (there’s nothing quite like a dark, quiet movie theater for immersing yourself in a film – emphasis on the quiet), but I really didn’t want to see The Princess and the Frog.

After the movie was released, I was expecting to either hear an ecstatic response, or a multitude of groans about how horrible it was. I heard neither. Maybe it’s because all of my media sources hadn’t seen the film in theaters, but then I didn’t hear about it after it came out on DVD, either. I figured, though, since Tiana was clearly a new Disney Princess and a mainstay, at least for a while, at the parks, I should at least see the movie so I would know what it was about. Into the Netflix queue it went. (On Blu-Ray,of course!)

Johnathan and I sat down to watch it with much reluctance, expecting that we would not at all appreciate it for what it was. We popped in the blu-ray disc and navigated through the approximately eighty previews to get to the menu, only to have it sit on that lightning bug for something like eight minutes before we gave up. It occurred to Johnathan that maybe the disc was prompting our system (Playstation 3) to look for a network connection before allowing us to go to the menu, so he went to unplug our router (which was currently just plugged in, but lacking in internet connection as Time Warner had disconnected us before our requested date, and we had not yet gotten our DSL modem for our new AT&T service), and poof! It worked! We had a bit of a facepalm about that, then proceeded in starting the movie.

I loved the style from the beginning, though Johnathan wasn’t as fond of it. I thought it pulled really well from the popular art style of the time. The story was pretty cute from the start, and we had a moment of amusement when we recognized John Goodman’s voice (it was akin to our “Patrick!” recognitions). It was cute. Princessy white girl and the black girl and her mother – mom’s telling a fairytale and sewing another princess-y dress for the white girl while the black girl enjoys the story, too. Appropriately, the story told is The Frog Prince. What else would it be? Then we see how Tiana lives – in a poor tenement with parents who clearly work very hard for what little they have but dream of having a better life. Then we are introduced to the moral: hard work and love will get you everything you need. Aww.

Tiana and her friend (whose name escapes me right now, but is definitely a spoiled princess by nature if not by title, but she’s at least not mean-hearted) grow up and Tiana works hard at two jobs trying to save up for her dream restaurant while the other girl is a rich daddy’s girl who is trying to woo a prince who is coming into town that very day. Plot point! Blah blah blah, Prince is arrogant, Tiana is prejudiced toward him and they both end up getting turned into frogs by an evil witch doctor who wants Big Daddy’s money, even if it means tricking the poor little rich girl into marrying a man who looks strangely like a monkey (the prince’s henchman). Through a series of wacky hi-jinks, Tiana and the Prince start to get along and fall in luuuuurve, and then there’s drama and a little creepiness and everyone lives happily ever after. That’s a seriously simplified version of how things went, but the ultimate sentiment is true.

The moral of the story is hard work and love. That stays consistent throughout. Tiana has her eyes fixed hard on her prize (her dream restaurant), and Prince Naveen wants some money so that he can continue living high on the hog and having fun without any responsibility. Big Daddy’s Princess wants to marry a prince and really doesn’t seem to have any goals at all outside of becoming a wife. Big Daddy’s Princess seems worst off out of everyone because she doesn’t really learn anything through the end of the movie, although she is a refreshing take on that type of character. She is not mean-hearted, even if she is spoiled, and ultimately she refuses to let Prince Naveen “sacrifice” himself by marrying her, but agrees to help Tiana and Naveen anyway. The others grow in their own way – Tiana learning that maybe hard work isn’t all there is to life (love) and Naveen learning that love of fun and money isn’t all there is, either (hard work and love). Aww. They get married and then, through hard work and a little help from Big Daddy’s Money, fix up the restaurant that Tiana had almost been blocked from buying because she’s a poor black woman (three strikes, you’re out).

There was a lot of humor in this movie, which I think helped it along, but there was a prevalence of dark elements which surprised me. The villain was a voodoo witch doctor who called on evil spirits to help him do his dirty work. He had a real motive, which is not something I have been able to say of all villains in animated films. He wanted Big Daddy’s money. (I’m sure that character has a name, but frankly I’m too lazy to look it up.)  He saw that Prince Naveen and his henchman had something that they wanted and used those wants to draw them into his evil plot. I’m not entirely certain why Prince Naveen had to be turned into a frog, but without his frogginess, we wouldn’t have had a Frog Prince story, would we? The evil spirits were actually pretty frightening in their ability to move about, and I was impressed with how unabashed the evil-ness was. As a small child, it would have terrified me. I remember being frightened by Sleeping Beauty and Alice in Wonderland as a child, though, so it wouldn’t have been out of line with some of the other Disney films. I actually quite liked the dark elements. It gave a real sense of danger and of conflict that propelled the movie along.

The Princess and the Frog also dealt more openly, I felt, with things like World War I, racism and sexism. Tiana’s father, it is implied, has died in the war, which I found to be an interesting element. It is never explicitly stated, but anyone with a knowledge of history should be able to glean that from the brief shot of his photograph in uniform on her desk. It might go over the heads of some smaller children, but they’ll figure out soon enough that he died, without having to go into great detail as to why. The racism and sexism come later when Tiana has finally worked hard enough and earned enough money to purchase the old sugar mill which she and her father had dreamed about turning into a restaurant. She gives the money to the realtors, and asks them to bring the contract to sign as soon as possible (smart girl) so that they can seal the deal. They agree, but later “regretfully” inform her that she has been outbid, and unless she can come up with the difference within a few days, the other bidder will own the property. The realtors comment that it was probably a bit much to take on for someone from “her background.” They are, not so subtly, referring to the fact that she is a poor black woman. I thought this bit was quite bold of Disney to address, considering it would have been the exact kind of opposition that any woman, but especially a black woman with no means other than what she creates for herself, would have experienced. Obviously she could have purchased another place, but she wanted that one, and what’s to say that she wouldn’t have run into the same kind of opposition for any property that she tried to buy? She was blocked from buying that which she had the means to purchase, simply because those selling viewed her as inferior. There are sexist overtones to the statement, too, but the racism is the strongest part. I really admire that the people involved with the film were willing to leave that element in.

Ultimately, she does get her building, and she buys it with her cans of money, but she has a little help from the alligator that she and Naveen befriend in their adventures in the swamp (grrrooowwwl!). It’s a little bit of a cheap way of her getting what she wants, but I’m glad that she didn’t have Big Daddy’s Princess sweep in and do it for her. This way, ultimately, she was getting what she wanted, largely on her own terms. And then she and Naveen do it the old fashioned way: by hand. I’m sure there was a little assistance from Big Daddy and Big Daddy’s Princess, and perhaps even Naveen’s parents, but I feel like Disney is showing that they ultimately did the work.

By the end of the film, it did start to smack us over the head a little bit, I liked the message. Magic didn’t get them what they wanted in the end, their love and hard work did. That’s not a bad thing to tell kids, especially with all of the other Disney films using such an emphasis on magical intervention and Happily Ever Afters. It’s the most realistic Happily Ever After I’ve seen in a Disney film. I really, ultimately, enjoyed the movie. Is it a perfect film? Not by a long shot. But I liked the story and the humor, and even the music was interesting. The art style was attractive and appropriate, and different than other Disney films, which makes it a unique creation. I’m sure Johnathan won’t be totally thrilled about this, but I’d like to own the movie, to put it on the shelf with the rest of my Disney fairytales that I go to when I need a dose of the unrealistic and magical. It was a pleasant way to spend an hour and a half. I just hope they’re not already planning a sequel. (No more sequels, Disney! John Lasseter, I’m looking at you!)

I do sometimes wish that he had lived somewhere other than Cleveland, though. I’ve really tried to like it here. The summertime is pretty, but so hot and muggy that it’s almost impossible to enjoy it. The winter is cold and gray. Spring and fall seem to have identity crises where they’re really not sure whether they’re maybe actually winter or perhaps summer instead, rather than a smooth transition into the next weather swing. I cannot deny that Cleveland has some beauty and charm to it. I mean, there’s charm in the cottonwood fluff that made the grass look snow-covered a couple of weeks ago, and I like seeing the leaves turn in the fall. But there’s just something about the fact that the Cuyahoga river has caught on fire more than once that doesn’t scream “ecological mecca” to me.

Cleveland has buildings. They are not the tallest buildings, or the grandest, but a few of them are very nice to look at. I especially like Terminal Tower, which has a stateliness to it that I find very appealing. I love the Playhouse Square area, with all of its theaters and bright, shiny signs. I can’t help myself. I love the lights. (And the theater that goes on inside isn’t so bad, either!)

But ultimately, I have a feeling of vague antipathy about Cleveland. I’m not alone, it seems. A few months ago, there was a news article – one of those “Best of/Worst of” kind of lists that everyone loves to read but nobody really believes because some of the info seems so far off of what we know. Forbes named Cleveland the most miserable city in the United States. I seem to be the only one who was not surprised by this. In fact, afterward, the Cleveland tourism folks and some Cleveland-centric magazine started a Twitter meme: #happyinCLE+. (The + doesn’t stick, so it has since morphed to just #happyinCLE.) People were encouraged to tweet about why they were happy living in Cleveland. It came off badly, I felt, because it looked like people were just trying way too hard to find ways in which one could be happy in Cleveland. And, to be frank, a lot of them were cases of being happy and also being in Cleveland, so it totally missed the point anyway. It did get me thinking about my status in this metropolis, however. I’m happy enough. And I am, in fact, in the greater Cleveland area. But I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am happy to be in Cleveland.

Cleveland has a kind of self-loathing that people here seem to almost hold as a badge of honor. Nobody really seems to actually like Cleveland, except for odd moments when something nice is happening and they’re there for it. Nobody really admits it, but people are proud to have bumper stickers that say “Cleveland: At least we’re not Detroit”. That doesn’t exactly scream civic pride. There seems to be a pervading attitude of distrust of your fellow person, too. People will stare you down, just to ensure you know that they are aware of your presence, so don’t try anything funny. I witness this everywhere in this area, not jut the more active parts of town. We could be going into a store to pick up a gallon of milk, and someone might end up giving us the fisheye of suspicion.

There seems to me to be a lack of things to do. “No!” my coworkers insist. “There’s lots to do in Cleveland!” So I ask them what. And then there is a very pregnant pause. And after exhausting the museums, the zoo, Playhouse Square and the West Side Market, everyone seems to be stumped. And then, do you know what the next thing on the list is? Bars. That’s the best thing people have managed to come up with. “Well, I know this great bar over by…” And food. “Have you been to the Cheesecake Factory? I love that place!” I admit that I have not yet been to the museums, but I’ve managed to do everything else on the list, save for the bars. We’re making our way through Little Italy, one restaurant at a time, and we’ve tried a few local Thai and Indian food places, but for the most part, the chains are way easier to find than the independent, local places. (Unless you want to pay an arm and a leg to eat down on East 4th at Pickwick and Frolic or one of Michael Symon’s restaurants, which I’d like to do, but isn’t exactly in the budget for now.)

So, what is life in Cleveland for me? It is surviving. Chicago opened my eyes (and Johnathan’s) to what life could be, and to what a city should be. We realized that there’s just something lacking here in Cleveland, and that ultimately, we’re settling. We’re not really living, just surviving, and that’s no way to be. I want to move somewhere, and we’re still talking very seriously about moving next year to Portland, but who knows at this point. We’ve both realized that it is not an option to stay in Cleveland. Cheap cost of living is no reason to stay in a place that feels like it is perpetually heading downhill. I’m sure someday Cleveland will come back and thrive, but I’m not willing to wait it out here until it does.

I know that Cleveland will always be a part of our lives. Johnathan’s parents are here, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be coming back for the Cleveland International Film Festival in the future, but I can’t see it remaining our place of residence. I’m sad that Cleveland hasn’t turned out to be quite what I expected, or even something that I could grow to love after two years and nine months. Life in Cleveland isn’t living, though, and I can’t keep putting off life forever.

The interaction got me thinking (and talking) about what feminism means. I have heard a lot of people refuse to identify themselves as feminists, usually while enjoying the freedoms that feminism has awarded us over the years: voting, working at whatever we like, heck – wearing pants! So why not identify as a feminist? It seems that the people who refuse to identify as feminists are misunderstanding the message behind feminism. They believe that it is about women dominating, about women being on top instead of men. This type of feminism tends to be very ugly. It is often about hating and reviling men, about insulting them and proclaiming (frequently) how women are so much better. This is not feminism as I know it. I’m not even sure what to call it that isn’t insulting to anyone. But it sure as heck isn’t feminism.

Feminism, to me, is the idea of perfect equality. It is the idea that women and men can have equal opportunities that have nothing to do with their gender. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t matter what our chromosomal makeup was, but rather what our skills are when it comes to finding a job. It wouldn’t matter what we look like – we’d just be people. Male, female, whatever we identify as – doesn’t matter. I’m a person and you’re a person and the rest is just details. That’s the ideal, and it’s one that I don’t expect to see in my lifetime, although I will continue to hope for it.

The trouble that’s easy to run into with any “wave” or form of feminism is that the message is easily distorted. Some have distorted the message in such a way as to believe that in order to be equal to men, we must act like men. So, we wear trousers and act gruff and aggressive, and because of sexism which has persisted through the years, these women who act masculine are ridiculed for it, especially if they find successful careers in doing it. And by changing themselves in such a way, they have taken a step back in for the feminist cause. They have confirmed that to be successful, one must be male, or at least behave in the way that males are expected to behave. A woman, therefore, cannot succeed unless she sheds all that is feminine about herself. It is a very discouraging outlook. The ones who try to retain their femininity are often looked over as being too soft. Any woman who wants to have a family as well as work is ridiculed and likely to be left behind her male counterparts because in some way or another, she is expected to balance the demands of work with the demands of home, whereas men are expected to ignore the demands of home. If you ask me, this is a disservice in expectations for both sides.

Men and women both suffer while we are unable to find a fairness and equality that is sustainable. Men are expected to behave in a certain way, to want certain things. And these things usually do not include the pursuits of home. I don’t know any stay-at-home dads, but I’m sure if I did I would know that they were ridiculed by others who believe that they are doing something that is somehow considered unnatural. It’s okay to expect a woman to stay at home to care for home and children, but if a man were to want that for himself, he would be considered a freak. A woman who doesn’t somehow want that very existence is too masculine. If she wants pursuits outside of the home, she is doing a disservice to her family and causing the ruination of society. But if she does want to stay home, she is an empty-headed drone who doesn’t do any real work. There is no winning situation here that I can find.

Feminism is not about deciding that one group of people is better than another. That is the complete reverse of the purpose of feminism. Feminism began as a movement to give women equal standing in the government and social life. It was intended, not to put men down, but to lift women up. It was not to make everyone the same, but to make our differences less of a factor in decision-making and in the distribution of legal and social rights. Feminism is then, to me, the basic rights of all people to have the same thing as everyone else. It has less to do with women being better than men and more to do with women wanting a voice in government and the right to work if they want. Men should have the right not to have a traditional career if that is what they want. Should, of course, being the key. It is not the generally accepted way of life yet.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that I think there are people out there who totally don’t get it. Feminism is not about avoiding things that have previously been considered tasks or jobs that women did. It’s not about one gender being better than another. It isn’t about what we wear or how we act. It’s simply about our equality as human beings. Not pursuing a hobby or career because women used to do it is completely missing the point and is really taking a step back as far as equality goes.

Feminism goes far beyond the simplicity of gender equality (which isn’t so simple at all). It extends to careers, hobbies, interests, preferences, politics… it’s about being willing to accept that people don’t always fit into prescribed roles, and that’s okay. It’s definitely about accepting that hobbies and interests and politics are not governed by gender. It’s absolutely about an open-mindedness that allows us to understand that not everyone’s life experience will even come close to our own. It’s about being allowed to be whoever we want to be and not be ridiculed or denied rights for it. In reality, the term feminism means a lot more than “women’s rights” or voting equality or workplace equality or any number of other things that feminism has had to actively campaign for in the past.

I identify proudly as a feminist. I will continue to knit because I enjoy it. I will continue to read books branded as “girly”, not because they are for girls but because I think they are good books. I will continue to watch the so-termed chick flicks because I like them. It has nothing to do with my gender, and it doesn’t make me in any way inferior to the man or woman who happens to enjoy slapstick humor and action movies and shoot-’em-up video games. We are, at our core, the same. We are human. We just like different things. That’s cool with me. You let me like what I like, I’ll let you like what you like, and we’ll all get along better for it.

Feminism shouldn’t ever be about hating anyone else. It should be about acceptance and ultimately about understanding that there are people who do and like different things than we do. Feminism is love, open-mindedness, acceptance and absolute equality.

The thing is, I know, in my head, that what I want is the inclusion in that world. I want all the cute. I want the experience. I want the excuse to knit itty bitty things – and then actually see them used. But I don’t have the patience right now for a child. It would not be a good time for us to intentionally bring a small person into the world. I would prefer to live in a house, first. I would prefer to be out of debt and well on our way funding our retirement funds. I want to be closer to a normal BMI before I put my body through all of that. So there’s a lot that needs to change before I feel like we’ll be ready for that step in life.

Additionally, I struggle with feelings that maybe I don’t want kids after all. Those temper the mania at times – until the mania pushes them completely out of my head. I mean, truly, most of the time, I find other peoples’ kids really annoying. There are well-behaved kids, and there are badly behaved parents who don’t properly teach their kids, thereby creating badly behaved kids. I know that. But the latter category seems to put me off having kids more than anything else. It was our biggest annoyance when we were at Walt Disney World last fall. Not the children who stayed with their parents and played normally, but the ones who roughhoused and kicked and kneed me, the ones who kept pseudo-accidentally spitting on our heads before Spectromagic, the ones who would scream and shout because they couldn’t have yet another expensive souvenir… those are the ones that really ruin it for me.

What if I have kids like that? What if I’m one of those parents? I would hate to walk around in a public place with little monsters for children, knowing full well that everyone around me thought the same of my spawn. I would like to say, I know that not all parents are like that, and not all kids are like that. But the ones that most people have to notice are like that. And those are the ones that stand out in my memory from our trip at WDW. Those are the ones that get all the attention at the store because their child is pitching a category 4 hissyfit over some toy that mom and dad has said they can’t have. Or, worse, the kid is wreaking havoc over a section and the parents are nowhere to be found. Those are the parents that make me worried about becoming one myself.

Then there’s also the responsibility factor. There are times when I feel like I can barely keep up with myself, let alone care for another human being. There are days when I have to argue with myself to get into the shower. I mean, really, if I can’t even take a shower in peace, how am I going to convince a small human being that they’re going to be alright in my care? I just have a feeling that reproducing is not in the cards for us for a while.

Or maybe never. We have talked extensively about social responsibility when it comes to having a family. I feel like there are so many children out there who don’t have homes or families for one reason or another, and for us to bring another person into the world, knowing full well there are kids out there who are victims of a system overburdened and underfunded, who will never experience the same kind of family love that we have had in our lives. (It isn’t perfect, but it’s still love!) So, why would we, then, willingly strive to bring into the world another human being to tax our natural resources, and shun those children who have had circumstances which threw them into a system that can’t really handle them as well as it should be able to? It just feels socially irresponsible. I struggle with that, too. There is no way that we’d be able to adopt at our age, from what I’ve heard about requirements for adoption. We don’t make enough money, and living in an apartment certainly doesn’t help. It’s just one of those things that I feel like it’s important for us to consider when it comes to parenthood.

Thinking about adoption certainly sobers up the baby mania to some extent, but then I still occasionally get those physical urges to be pregnant and have a natural child, one made up of our DNA. I am sure that, no matter what we decide, I will struggle with this for a very long time, whether we have children or not. I know it is not a decision to be made lightly – having children cannot be undone! You don’t just get to ‘give them back’ at the end of the day if  you don’t feel like having kids after all. So I know it’s something that I have to be sure about before I do it, or I may end up regretting that, and I think that would be far, far worse than regretting not having children.

But, oh man, could someone please hand me a screaming child? I need to quell this urge before something inside me explodes.

And then sometimes, I just want to not care anymore. I want to be that person who doesn’t think too hard about anything, and who can take everything at simple face value. I want to give in to belief in stereotypes and become one myself. I want to believe that the world really is as simplistic as other people would like it to seem, that everything and everyone can be neatly categorized and that people work in specific behavior patterns, regardless of upbringing and societal influence.

It’s a hard line to walk sometimes. I get so frustrated with the world sometimes over things that I have no way of changing, and that’s when I swing back toward the urge not to care. Ultimately, I know I can’t just stop caring. I can’t unlearn the things I’ve learned, and I certainly can’t change myself to the point of being willing to ignore such big social issues. So where in this is the balance? I have a really hard time finding it. I don’t want to stop caring, that’s for certain, but how do I find that level where I’m caring enough, but not too much?

I don’t know. It’s something to think about. I feel I have a social responsibility to stand up to stereotypes and social double-standards, but it’s not easy to walk that path, and it’s not easy to stay rational, sometimes, while doing it. It is too easy to swing too far in one direction or the other, either shunning all responsibility and giving in to social mindlessness, or caring too much and trying to govern the thoughts and actions of others.

For now, I will have to settle for not knowing where that happy middle is. I will continue to challenge the ideas of those around me while also trying to challenge my own ideas as often as possible, checking and re-checking my beliefs for truth and conviction. And I’m probably going to be damn confused while I do it for a long time. I suppose that’s normal.

I’m learning that social responsibility is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of courage to really stand up for something – even the typical gender stereotypes that are so easily believed. I have a goal in mind and I think it will take a long time before I find out where I’m supposed to stand in the “scheme” of things when it comes to responsibly defying social norms in favor of what is right.

We were cleaning up the apartment, rearranging furniture, doing dishes, etc. We had just started the dishwasher and were wrapping up the cleaning we were going to do. I opened the fridge to put my leftovers back in, and poof. Pure darkness. Lots of quiet. I thought maybe we’d blown a fuse because my desk lamp was on in the computer room, but that wasn’t so. It was the only light on, and as it turns out, it was plugged into my UPS so was still being powered. Whoops. So no power. The whole building was down. Once we located flashlights, we found out that not only was the building down, but it looked like the whole street was out, too! The two big cross-streets were dark.

It turns out that pretty much everything that we want to do requires power or at least light. I’ve gotta say, it doesn’t sound fun to try to play Scrabble or Monopoly with flashlights. Reading a book would be fine for me, but Johnathan’s not much of a reader, so what would he do? Impasse. Naturally, our next solution was to go for a walk! Well, it wasn’t the next thing we thought of, but it was too eerily quiet to do anything that the neighbors might potentially hear. I mean, there was no ambient noise at all except for the cars on the nearby streets and the apartment tenants chatting to each other, postulating what might have happened to cause the outage. No dice there. So we went for a walk.

Despite it being May, it’s been really chilly lately, with our highs back down to the low 50′s Fahrenheit. We donned our coats and I put on my lovely Signe hat and a-walking we went. I took the Maglight that my dad gave to me about ten years ago. It’s a nice long one. I had a weapon in case someone got a little too pushy or something on our usually-pretty-safe-looking street. It was strange how dark everything was when we were walking up to the street. We could see who was still awake and making due with whatever they had that didn’t require electricity to light up and who had just given up and gone to bed already.

When we got up to the intersection near our apartment, we decided it would probably be best not to try to cross the four-lane street. People were having a really hard time with the concept of the ‘four-way stop’, since the stoplight was out. So we turned right and proceeded down the street. About a quarter mile down the street, we met a man who was just standing watching the traffic. He was able to tell us the scope of things as far as he had heard from others. Down the street into the next town, there was no power, and in the other direction, there were people without power a few miles down the road. But the street up past the highway, reportedly, had power. Interesting! We still, of course, hadn’t heard what happened, so we kept walking. I’m not sure where we thought we were going – we just kept walking, using our flashlights to check down the little alleys to ensure we weren’t going to die unexpectedly because someone decided that was the best time to clobber a random pedestrian.

We got up to a little storage facility a couple miles down the road (I’ll never be able to think of one of those without shuddering after seeing Storage at the film festival) and decided to turn around. It was late, we’d been cleaning for a few hours and I was getting pretty tired. As we walked back, I reflected on the way the area seemed to change with the power out. There was a feeling of lawlessness as nobody obeyed traffic laws and the only stoplight that I saw where people used the four-way stop behavior was the one right near our apartment, which is generally pretty busy anyway. The rest? Well, people just blew right through them. I’m surprised we didn’t witness a car accident. Everyone was suspicious, more so than they would have been in daylight or even if the power had been working. It was interesting to see that none of the businesses had generators, and few even seemed to have emergency lights. So, it was an interesting walk!

We got back to the apartment, and I was really tired. We took care of our evening ablutions and got into bed. I was just starting to drift off to sleep when a light in our computer room came on. Power was back. It had gone out for about an hour and a half in total, and we’d done a pretty darn good job of getting everything turned off. Johnathan sweetly retrieved my cell phone from his car, where we had stashed it to charge for a while since it was almost dead when the power went out, and then we both collapsed and went to sleep.

The next day, I decided to look up what happened. I found an article that reported that First Energy had a piece of equipment fail on Sunday night which took out power in our city and a few of the ones surrounding. They estimate that over 10,000 homes were without power on Sunday night. Big deal! Not like the multi-state outage of 2003 that I was told about several times. (“Don’t you remember?!” people kept asking. No! I was in Oregon! And heck, I don’t remember any major Oregon weather things from then, either. I turned 18 that year. I probably didn’t care.) But it was a pretty big deal for us and people in our area. I’m glad power came back on, because we were charging Johnathan’s cell phone with his netbook and praying we’d both wake up to his alarm when it went off. I’d hate to call in and tell my boss I’d be late because we lost power the night before!

All in all, it made a pretty exciting end to the weekend. I suspect that Johnathan and I revel in disaster situations when clearly nobody’s hurt because of it and we’re not having to work to correct it. They’re pretty exciting in those circumstances!

Finals were last week. I finished them all with a bit of a whimper. I was really ready to be done with classes. I questioned the point. I asked myself if grades really matter to anyone but me. (Do they, honestly? Is anyone going to care what grade I got in a random class in community college? I really doubt it.) I wondered why I was putting myself through all of this. I talked about school at the beginning of the semester, before things had started to overwhelm me. Reading it again, I seemed so positive, so hopeful! At some point, I lost that. Possibly it was when I realized that my theater teacher was making the class very difficult for working students. (A weekday, daytime meeting requirement, really? Isn’t that the point of online classes? That they’re flexible for working students? Meh.) Maybe it was when I realized that most of the students in my classes were basically incapable of analyzing anything, and that I was doing way too much work to get the same grades as they would get. Maybe it was just because I lost the plot somewhere after the midterms. I still got my stuff done. I managed ultimately to get, I’m pretty sure, three As (in history and my two music survey classes) and a C (in theater – I could say a lot of mean things, but I’ll just say this: if you want a paper that’s 5-6 pages, tell me that; if you say you want the paper to be 4-5 pages, and I hit 4.5 pages, do not say it is on the short side! No! It is not! It is right in the middle. So there). I’m pretty satisfied with that. The perfectionist side of me is kicking myself for every point that I lost in that theater class that would have given me a C. Despite the fact that I lost 100 points (of 1100) because I couldn’t justify taking four or five hours off of work to go and watch a video of a play I’d already read (and he offered no alternative other than trying for extra credit in the discussion boards), I still blame myself. Surely I could have done something else to make up the points, right? Yeah, whatever. I vacillate between kicking myself and being overwhelmed by apathy about it. Either way, it’s over. So, this semester is done.

Before the semester ended, I made a few decisions. I was not going to take full time classes through the end of the year. This was my original plan. I’d have an Associate of Arts by the end of the year if I did. It would look really great to achieve that much! But that’s for students who have part time jobs or even no jobs at all. I can’t justify the sacrifice of life and sanity to get a degree that doesn’t actually achieve anything for me. I won’t get a raise or promotion because I have an associate’s degree, particularly in arts! That’s just not what IT departments are looking for, I’m pretty sure. So I dropped three of my classes for summer term and registered only for two classes in the fall. I’ll probably need to do classes next spring and summer, too, just to make sure I get all the classes I need for my degree, but with every semester, I’ll be getting a little closer. And, since I wouldn’t be pushing myself so hard, I’ll retain my sanity. That’s always a positive, I think.

In the last week, I decided to read one of the books that I go to when I want some comfort. It took me about one day to read through it, so then I picked up one of the books I brought in and sat up on the shelf on my desk before the semester started, when I thought I would still have time to read now and then. (That didn’t so much happen. They’re all a little dusty at this point.) I finished that one the next day. That night, we went to Barnes & Noble, just because. I bought two books. I started that one the next day and finished it last night. Then I started on the other book I bought. I’m reading it today at work (Friday! Whoo!) with every intention of finishing it today, unless things get crazy and busy. I have two books on my shelf here at work and at least two at home that I haven’t read before. I’m predicting that I’m going to run out of new books to read before the new semester starts up.

What I’ve really discovered is that it’s amazing what you miss out on when you have to sacrifice self in a busy schedule like I was living. I lost track of myself, and I really bottled everything up, because I didn’t want anyone else to see how hard it was on me. Earlier this week, as I was driving home from work, I basically lost it on the way home. I started sobbing, and I couldn’t stop. I cried halfway home, then came home and cuddled Beethoven for as long as he would let me hold him. Then he deserted me. My kitties, for once, couldn’t seem to tell that I needed them. So I took a nap. And when I woke up, I still felt off, but better. We went to the bookstore that night, and I started to feel more alive than I’ve felt in four months. I was reliving interests that I’ve had to put aside, not only for lack of time but also for lack of money. (We’ve been pretty ruthless with ourselves, and there just wasn’t money to buy books or many other fun things in past months.) We got coffee and meandered through the bookstore. I remembered what it feels like to find so many books that are begging to be taken home and to have to practice the self-denial which usually still involves buying two or three books. (I only got two! I was so proud of myself!) It felt like a piece of myself came back to me.

Now I’m reading voraciously, and thinking about imaginary characters in imaginary places and disappearing into their worlds for a little while. And then when I come back to real life,  I feel more alive again, like it’s easier to handle again. I’ve missed books. I didn’t realize how much I missed being able to read because I wanted to read, not because I needed to for a class. And it feels like, with the re-introduction of reading to my daily schedule, I have regained a piece of myself that has been dormant for months. It feels wonderful. I’m hopeful that I can avoid a repeat of this mania at the end of every semester to follow.

Hello, me! I missed you!

Once I found a job, things got a little better. Things weren’t so tight and we could breathe again, but I wouldn’t say we were financially stable. I wasn’t making a lot of money, and Johnathan was underpaid and overworked. But we were both employed, and making plans to get out of debt as soon as we stabilized. We got stable financially (well, enough, anyway) around the time we got married in September 2008, so we set up a “snowball” structure for our debts and began working toward paying that off.

I won’t say we haven’t had setbacks along the way. That would be a bald-faced lie. Some months, our debt went up instead of down, but for every single one of them, we can identify the cause (couch, new TV, vacation, etc), and since our debt graph was still going down, it wasn’t something to worry about. We’re now over a year and a half into the process and we’ve paid off all credit card debt, and I sent off the last payment for my student loan last week. That leaves our cars and my loan for the current school term. Three quarters of our debt is gone, and all of our truly harmful debt is gone.

After going through our bills the other day, it was interesting to realize that we’re… fine. We’re fine! If something were to happen, we would float. In fact, we’re talking about funneling all of my paychecks into savings as soon as the debt is gone, because there won’t be any other draw for it. This means that we’ll be able to put aside money for big things like a down payment for a house, like big vacations, college… anything, really! It’s already very freeing to be out from under so much debt, and heading toward true financial freedom. Realizing that we’d only have a few recurring bills left after we’re done paying down debt, and some of them may be able to be reduced in frequency.

We’re so close to being finished with debt payment – it feels absolutely wonderful. We should have both of our cars paid off totally within a couple of months, and I expect to see our total debt fall under $5,000 on Tuesday when I get paid. We’re saving for two vacations and have plenty set aside for the one in September, and are instead looking toward the one we’ve planned for May of next year. With any luck, we’ll be able to contribute the maximum to our IRA next year and start accumulating significant savings. Our financial outlook is beautiful!

We got married in September 2008 with Johnathan’s biological parents (step-parent was conspicuously absent), and my parents and step-parents, as well as Allison, said best friend. That was our “guest list.” Even now, I feel like it wasn’t about us, or even really for us. It was for them. Is that wrong? Maybe. Weddings are supposed to be about the couple coming together with friends and family to celebrate a new chapter in their lives.

Part of the problem with my perception of this day is probably that I don’t feel like it started a new chapter. No magical change came over us and changed our relationship. We didn’t behave any differently than we had before we got married, and I certainly didn’t feel any different. The only real change is that now people sit there and call me “Mrs.” and coo at me when they realize we’ve been married a “short” enough time to still be called newlyweds. Thankfully, I no longer get asked incessantly when we’re planning to reproduce, but these seem to be the things that define marriage.

We have no printed photos of that day. My step-dad took some pictures, my dad and step-mom did, and so did Johnathan’s mom. I’ve seen a fair number of the pictures – even had some of them emailed to me, but I have really very little interest in having them printed and put into our apartment to “show off.” It was just another day along the road to me. I think I’ll be more likely to post a photo of us when we finish our first 5K (which we’re planning to do, when we’re physically able!), when I graduate from college, or of us on some vacation. Those memories seem like they’ll mean more than the day we got married.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t value our marriage. I love Johnathan, and our relationship is very important to me. It doesn’t define me, but it is a very important part of my life. I fully believe that we would enjoy the same relationship as we have now, even if we hadn’t gotten married. It’s just financially beneficial to get married, not to mention that it simplifies things legally if one of us should ever get seriously hurt or sick. It also helps to show others that this is a serious relationship. A lot of people see even long-term live-in relationships as transient, not lasting. So I suppose us getting married is as much for the lack of hassle as it is for the financial benefit and legal simplification.

I read so much about the drama associated with weddings. They seem to bring out the worst in people – all people involved, sometimes. They can be beautiful and lavish, but I often hear more people complain about the process leading up to the wedding, about the day of, and then about the clean-up and catch-up afterward than I hear people praising their wedding day. Most brides claim not to have eaten all day and many say they can barely remember the day at all. So what’s the appeal? It holds none for me, though I’m sure some can find the silver lining in all the trouble and possible drama. I know weddings don’t have to be any of that, but the sheer number of weddings that are exactly that helped me feel more comfortable in our decision.

So, our wedding wasn’t dramatic or meticulously planned. We didn’t get any spectacular photos out of the day. I didn’t even really want it, though it was nice to get our parents together, even if they may never see one another again, and it was nice to see my family, if only for a short period of time. And I was glad when they went home, too. We got married without the pomp and circumstance. If I had it to do all over again, I’m not totally sure I would, but I would definitely still get married. I don’t regret that at all. It’s interesting to think about how my perception of that day which is supposed to have been so monumental for us has changed in just a year and a half, and how it hasn’t. I think our marriage and relationship are good. I don’t think that a wedding is my cup of tea.

Oh well. At least we’ll never need to do it again!

Every now and then an event occurs in my life that makes me think “Wow! This would make a great blog entry!” But, alas. When it’s go time the drive is lost before I even start my browser.

I have so many things to say but I think the problem I have when it comes to blogging is two-fold. I have too many places I’m able to express myself online and what do I have to say, exactly that hasn’t already been said? Thanks to the proliferation of Internet availability more people than ever are online, each with countless things to say. With those things to say come more and more tools to say them with.

If I have something quick to say I can trim it down to a nice 140 characters and send it to Twitter so that the 30 people and 175 spambots that follow me can hear my quick thoughts on why Hot Fuzz was the best police comedy ever made. It’s easy, near real time, and doesn’t require much thought. I can send the tweet and not think about I any more. It’s a bit like the Showtime Rotisserie Grill- set it and forget it.

When it comes to a real blog there is more of a time commitment and a lot more thought. Not only am I more aware of the potential for the size if my audience to be exponentially larger but I’m forced to think more about what it is I’m trying to say. If I want to talk about Hot Fuzz being “zomg so awesome” I have to actually explain myself.

But has it been said before?

That’s what trips me up every time. I start to think not just about adding content to Bits of Existence but about adding to he discussion in the Web at large. Nobody wants to be the guy who walks into a group of people already involved in conversation and brings up the topic that was just laid to rest 30 seconds before.

I find myself worrying so much about keeping my signal to noise ratio so low that I just don’t say anything at all.

And that is why blogging is so hard for me.

Day 7 started with The Baby Formula, a Canadian “mockumentary”-style saga about a lesbian couple’s journey into dual-motherhood as they both become pregnant through ground-breaking technology which allows sperm to be created from their stem cells, thereby allowing their children to truly be of their own flesh and blood. The concept of the birth was very interesting – especially that the two could only have female children. It wasn’t something that would have occurred to me. I liked the film a lot. It gave me a bit of baby mania, but that went away, as it always does. I thought the film was very interesting, and it certainly got me thinking.

Once we got out of that one, we headed to the food court where Johnathan’s mom was waiting for us. As far as I know, she’d never gone to anything at the film festival before, so it was a new experience for her. We got something to eat, then walked her to the ticket holder lines. Johnathan stayed with her while I staked out some seats in the theater for Three Days with the Family. As far as a first experience goes, I don’t think it was the best one. The film seemed to lack plot and any driving force behind it. There was a lot that went unsaid and unexplained, and maybe I was too dense to get it, but I felt like if this was Maria’s only experience with the festival, it would not have been positive. I think that was what bothered me the most.  The characters were undeveloped and too much was left unstated for it to be a satisfying film experience.

We were seeing Chameleon next, and there wasn’t a lot of time to dawdle. We walked Johnathan’s mom to the line, and then repeated the process from the previous film. I found seats, and Johnathan joined me not long after since the ticket-holder line was getting pretty long. The film was pretty good! It was a little bit suspenseful, a little funny, a little thrilling and overall pretty entertaining. It was a film about a con-man’s latest swindle. It was interesting to watch his plan progress and see what truly can happen when someone very good at what he does loses sight of his goal and gets distracted by something else. (In this case: love.) I think it redeemed the film festival for Johnathan’s mom, so even though she didn’t see any more at the 34th CIFF, maybe she’ll come back and see some next year.

We had a reasonable break after that one, so we sauntered up to Hospitality Headquarters for a while and enjoyed some snacks. The next film we saw was The Girl on the Train, which was… disappointing. I could see how it had the potential to be very interesting, but the main character had a very low affect and very little range of emotion. That made it hard to identify with her or even develop any level of feeling for her. By the end of the film, I really just wanted to smack her. It wasn’t a very good way to end our day at the festival. We had originally planned to stay for Small Crime, but had opted against it, owing to our bad experience with last year’s Greek film, and given that we’d seen two not-so-great movies already, we just went home.

The next day started with Best of Times – a change from our original schedule. We stayed home and slept in instead of getting up at 8AM and going in to see the 11AM round of films. It threw off the whole day, but I don’t regret not going to the first film. It didn’t really interest me. Best of Times was charming and sweet with a hint of bittersweet. It was from Thailand and the way the story unfolded was paced well, and the characters were developed enough for the audience to want them to succeed. The ending was realistic – not like many romantic dramas tend to be in American cinema. I quite enjoyed it and felt it was an excellent start to our film day.

The next originally was to have been The Last Days of Emma Blank, but we swapped it for another showing on Saturday and instead saw Small Crime after hearing that it was pretty good. I don’t regret making that move, either. Small Crime turned out to be interesting and engaging, if a bit slow to develop. The story was interesting and didn’t unfold too quickly. I was afraid it would end up being too predictable, but as more and more elements were added to the story of small-town drama, the possible endings changed and the story did not end at all as I had expected. I was glad we re-arranged our schedule to fit that back in.

We had originally planned to see Mrs. Moscowitz and the Cats, but after talking with some folks before Small Crime who hadn’t heard good things about it, we changed to The Last Train Home, which had also been on one of our lists. I kind of wish we hadn’t changed. It was a documentary about the mass migration in China for the new year. It focused on one family throughout, and while it was interesting from a familial standpoint, I thought it would address the trials and hardships involved with parents having to go to big cities to work and leaving their families behind a little bit more. Instead, it really seemed to focus on the unique hardships of one specific family, and it didn’t do anything to analyze it or even tell the audience exactly how it impacted their lives. It was just shots of the family talking, traveling, things they were doing. I wasn’t overly impressed with it. I was just expecting more from it, I think.

Afterward, we had some downtime in the Hospitality Headquarters, where I had to admit that I hadn’t loved The Last Train Home to the lady who we had been talking to (who had also seen it at the same time). The last film of the day was a Slovenian film called A Call Girl. It was about a college student in Slovenia who starts to work as a call girl so that she can afford the “finer” things in life, while simultaneously avoiding her other financial responsibilities and letting her schoolwork suffer. She runs into a number of difficulties – some pimps who want to “protect” her, an ex-boyfriend hell-bent on exposing her, and pursuit from the government and the press after her peripheral involvement with a German diplomat’s death. It was an interesting story and interesting to see how her life spiraled out of her control largely because of her own decisions. I thought the film was interesting. Once again – very slow to develop. I’m sure my patience for slow development got shorter as the week wore on, but I think a lot of the films rely too much on filler shots of walking instead of engaging story developments. Then it was time to go home. Day 8 began and ended on a high note.

The first film of day 9 was Protektor, a film set during WWII in Czechoslovakia. It was interesting stylistically, but I found the characters lacking. I’m not sure if I was missing something, but it seemed to lack some cohesion. I still found the style to be very interesting, and the muted colors helped to set the tone for the film, even if the plot didn’t do much to sustain it. Overall, I wasn’t terribly impressed with it.

Next was Father and Guns. This was a French Canadian comedy about a father and son who both work for the police force and have to go undercover as, well, father and son. This was probably our most interesting film festival experience. First, they had trouble with the screen – the curtains wouldn’t widen out. We all noticed that the start of the film was most certainly not in either French or English. It was in Russian. It didn’t take very long for people to figure out that they were trying to show us Hipsters! But it seems they didn’t notice, because when the snafu with the curtains was fixed, they started it again. We got partway into the first scene before the film was stopped. I mean, I really liked Hipsters, but that wasn’t what we were there to see! After another delay while they rewound the film and threaded the right one, we got started on Father and Guns. Not five minutes into it, the film melted. It melted! At that point, we were a solid half an hour delayed, so I was already suspecting we’d miss the next round. No matter, though. Father and Guns was Johnathan’s pick, but I ended up really enjoying it. It was subtitled well so that I forgot they were speaking French and not English because it was so smooth. The film had a humor in the same spirit as Hot Fuzz but with less of the gory violence. From start to finish, I really enjoyed it. It would be one I could see owning on DVD.

Sure enough, when we got out of Father and Guns, we had about one minute to get to the other side of the cinemas into the theater for Convention. We ended up having to skip it, because we were hungry and needed a bathroom break. So we went upstairs to the Hospitality Headquarters and sat for a while. While we were up there, we encountered someone that Johnathan compares to a certain group of roller coaster fanatics. He was going on about films and how he “knows” people and can put him (the gentleman he was accosting) in touch with all the right people to get his film promoted well. He probably went on for fifteen to twenty minutes while we discreetly watched with amusement. He finally left to catch the film that was starting last in the round, and the gentleman moved to the table on the other side of us, nearer to an outlet to plug in his laptop. It was then that we found out that he was the executive producer of Ivory, which we had scheduled for our last round that day. He talked to us about the film festival and how many films we’d seen, then talked a little about his film. We had been discussing skipping it earlier in the day, but after talking to him, I sort of felt obligated to see it. He kind of struck me like a lost puppy. He didn’t totally seem to know what was going on around him, but he was very friendly! We spent the break between films redoing our weekend schedule to oust some films that we weren’t sure why they made it on the list and to add some films that we hadn’t even planned on seeing to begin with. Then it was time to go down for another film.

I Am Love looked interesting on paper. It was another film where the plot seemed meant to focus on relationships, and unfortunately, it wasn’t very well developed. Tilda Swinton was beautiful, as usual, but her character was bland. The only character that seemed to have any depth at all died near the end of the film. Well, that sucked! It wasn’t a horrible movie, but I think Johnathan might have fallen asleep during, and I know I had a few moments where I drifted a bit. It just wasn’t as good as I expected it to be. Once again, I expected more.

Since we promised the executive producer that we would, we went to see Ivory. I figured I’d be interested in it – I’ve been in music basically my whole life, and I’m aspiring to be a classical musician professionally (someday). It seemed right up my alley. Johnathan also understands, having also been in music for much of his life. The film started, and not a full ten minutes into it, I was sick of hearing about how famous and amazing the main character’s grandfather had been. Who cares, man? You’re you and he’s him. You can’t ride his coattails to success. Then his “friend”, who really seemed more like he was meant to be one of those “frenemy” things, was a really flat character, and really only came across as a jerk. The girl was, meh, okay, but boring. And the other characters were just… there. Not even worth mentioning. After 45 minutes of wankery, we walked out. I couldn’t take it anymore, particularly after the main character, a pianist aspiring for big fame, dismissed Mozart as insignificant. Oh no you didn’t. Mozart is one of my favorite composers, and while I get that Brahms was his, it seemed like a crutch, and honestly – who would do that? It seemed to be a means of showing how much he knew about classical music, but it really only showed a lack of understanding. I wanted to scream. I was offended by the portrayal of all the musicians and by the implication of the movie that unless you’re pursuing the big dreams, the big fame, you’re not a true musician. My big goals in life revolve around a position in a city opera – and not even the Met! Does that make me less of a musician? I don’t fucking think so. Then, of course, the statements about music teachers, which I suspect is the “conflict” that the main character is meant to get over by the end of the film. Unfortunately, I couldn’t stand to sit there for another long, painful hour to find out exactly how the prick with no personality fared at the Liszt competition. Sorry, guys. I don’t think anyone in the process of the film actually went to Oberlin for music. If they did, I’d like to know who the fuck they were in classes with, because that’s not a wide cross-section of musicians in my experience! As you can see, I’m still steaming about the film a little bit. The older folks, apparently, really loved the film, though the executive producer said that we were its target audience. You’re way off the mark here, I think. Sorry guy. After fuming our way home, we sat together and tuned Johnathan’s guitar. Then it was time to go to bed and call an end to day 9.

After totally rearranging our schedule for the weekend, I honestly went through the day not knowing what the heck we were seeing next, with the exception of a few films. The first on Saturday (day 10) was Will Not Stop There. It was a film from Croatia and Serbia. I know very little about that area and its politics, which made some of the understanding of the film a little bit difficult. It wasn’t a big enough part of the film to stunt the understanding completely, though. I thought the film was a little bit quirky and kind of sweet. It wasn’t amazing or life-changing, but it was pretty good. It wasn’t a total waste of time, which by that point in the festival I viewed as a major plus.

The next film was Serbian and Albanian. The correlation of the two films was totally unintended. Honeymoons seemed like a good idea on paper, but Johnathan most definitely fell asleep during, and frankly, I don’t blame him. The film didn’t have a lot to drive it, and it spent a long time working up to the conflict and climax, which then happened and “resolved” in about ten minutes total, it seemed like. That, in combination with some folks talking created a not-so-pleasant situation. We left the film feeling disappointed at another “dud”.

Afterward, we had just enough time to get a refill on our pop and take a pit stop, then we were on our way to see Storage, which Johnathan had picked up. The film was a definite thriller dealing with murder and crime. It was a very interesting experience for me. I don’t do very well with graphic violence in film, and this one had it in spades. About halfway through, I started feeling a little sick to my stomach and thought that maybe I should leave the theater. I wanted to see how it ended, though, and I thought that it might be good for me to try and tough it out rather than run away from it. Well, afterward, I realized that I should have left the theater. It didn’t get any better and I certainly didn’t feel any better by the end. It was an exciting move and had quite a few unexpected plot twists to keep the audience on edge. There was even a scream from an audience member at an unexpected moment. Johnathan came out of the film raving about it. I think it took me a full five minutes to calm down enough that I could say anything about it. Despite the horrible feelings I was experiencing, I still gave the film a 3 out of 4 rating. It seems really odd in retrospect to do that, given how badly I was feeling, but I still think it was a good movie, even if I don’t handle films like that very well. We went up to the hospitality headquarters after that, and I downed a beer in near record time while I tried to calm down from the nausea I was still experiencing. I know Johnathan felt bad about choosing that film, but I still maintain that any of my discomfort was based solely on my own willingness to stay in the theater rather than leave. I’m glad he liked it, and I think I learned something from it: LEAVE if you’re made that uncomfortable! I’ll remember that for the next time I might happen to end up in the theater for a terrifying film.

Next was My Year Without Sex. I couldn’t honestly remember what the film was about, except that it was about, well, someone’s year without sex. It was an Australian film, which brought our coincidences that day to two (Storage was also out of Australia). The film was sweet and funny and a little bit heartbreaking. In many ways, it was just like any other family comedy, but in others, it got me thinking. Mostly, it got me thinking about faith (or lack thereof) and about what would happen if I died now. It reminded me that we have to create wills and living wills. I enjoyed the film – and I think I enjoyed it even more because it helped bring me back from the desolation and horror I felt after Storage.

The last film of the day was The Last Days of Emma Blank, which we had moved to Saturday in order to accommodate Small Crime. The only word I can really use to describe it is… weird. It was really weird. It was funny, but incredibly, indescribably weird. It was puzzling for a while, because we, as the audience, didn’t know why the family was acquiescing to Emma’s demands without much complaint or resistance until close to the end of the film. Really, the film was very interesting and it had a few unexpected twists and turns of plot that kept me engaged and interesting through the end, in addition to the delightful weirdness which I thoroughly enjoyed. I know others in the theater probably didn’t like it as much as I did, but oh – did I love it. I was pleased that the night didn’t end with a whimper.

Sunday, the last day of the festival, started out kind of slowly. We were both very tired, but I wanted to see some of the films we had scheduled for the day (well, all of them, really). The first was Mid-August Lunch, about a man caring for his elderly mother, when he is put upon to care for the elderly mothers of others in his acquaintance. The weekend for them moves forward sometimes painfully slowly as the group of ladies adjust to one another and to the new environment. It was a sweet film, but not overly engaging for its length. I felt like it needed more conflict to drive it. Perhaps I was becoming blase about the films at this point, but I did enjoy it. I just didn’t love it.

The next was another almost immediate turn-around to get in to the film on time. It was The Enemy, out of Venezuela. The subtitling on this film was a bit annoying because not everything was translated, in particular the text at the very end of the film. I have no idea what they were trying to tell me because nobody bothered to put it into English for those of us not able to speak Spanish. I found The Enemy to be quite engaging and interesting. It explored the idea of good versus evil and how easily those lines can blur, even where one might think they were very clear. Johnathan didn’t like it as much, but I thought it was an interesting concept. It was about twenty minutes longer than it absolutely needed to be, though, and that contributed to my increasing boredom by the end of the film. I’m sensing a trend with myself that I would rather have a shorter film than artistic shots. Oh well.

Splinters was our next film. It was not on either of our lists, but in trying to find a film for that block so that we wouldn’t end up sitting around for a couple of hours while waiting for our closing film, I checked out what was available. This one seemed very interesting on paper. It was from Poland, and I was interested to hear how much the language sounded similar to German in spots. The film was divided into three parts, which seemed like it might work in theory, but it seemed to stop the film where it might have flowed seamlessly from one part to the next with clever editing. I wasn’t thrilled with the film, but I was even less thrilled by the talking going on around us. The woman two seats down from me was a chatterbox, and then there was the couple in the row behind us, and the large group at the other end of our row, and then the elderly couples in the row in front of us. Seriously, one would think that by day 11 of the film festival, people would have known not to talk! It can totally ruin the experience for everyone else. Thankfully, that was the worst talking experience we had for the whole festival.

The next (and final) film we saw was Paper Man. After a final sojourn in the Hospitality Headquarters, we headed in and got seats near the back. I forgot about the bucket for change, and I never have any cash on me anyway, so we had nothing to contribute to the final push for the challenge match. The film was interesting. The concept of imaginary friends is interesting to me, since I never had one myself. (I think my brother was a pretty good playmate, so there was no need for an imaginary friend!) It was interesting to see the concept explored of a relationship with a man and a teenage girl that didn’t have to be lewd or inappropriate, but more like a father-daughter relationship, which clearly both of them craved. It was sweet and a little bit sad. I’m pretty sure when it gets wide release, it will get an R rating. It’s probably merited. I wouldn’t have dealt with it very well as a kid, that’s for sure. It’s not a “kid” movie.

We ended up not staying for the closing reception because, as previously mentioned, we were both quite tired, and considering ours was the last film to get out in that final round of films, we never would have been able to see anything. We chose, instead, to leave and get some dinner. We stopped at Applebee’s and rather than standing around straining to see and possibly to hear, we sat in the comfort of the restaurant, enjoyed tall beers and watched the twitter feed for the award winners and the final numbers.

With 71,500 people visiting the festival this year, we could feel that it was more crowded on some days, particularly in the evenings, than last year. Since we had passes, we didn’t have to worry about getting into any films, only about whether we would be able to get decent seats that weren’t in the very front of the theater. We got free beer several times, and enjoyed free food for most of the festival in addition to what the food court had to offer. We weren’t the best when it came to eating (and I can feel the water retention because of all the sodium we ate this last week), but I feel like we had a good week nevertheless. Now it’s time to get back to real life – work, cleaning the apartment, exercise and errands. CIFF is over for another year. I’m already looking forward to next year.

I was really underwhelmed by Forgetting Dad. It felt like something was missing. Obviously there’s not a lot he could do to get his father on camera at the end, since he didn’t want to be on camera, but I feel like this was more good for him and not so interesting as a film otherwise. Just “eh.” I could have lived without seeing it.

After a break in the headquarters, we headed down to see The Happiest Girl in the World. The promo shot was much higher quality than the film itself. The film was dingy and grainy – not at all what I was led to expect from the picture. The story had promise, but was mostly driven by the fact that the main character was a teenager who was on her period and therefore even more emotional and less likely to be acquiescent than usual. I was underwhelmed by that one as well. It just didn’t live up to expectations.

We had a fairly brief break after that one, so we sat at a table in the food court for a little while and had a snack. Then we headed in to see Hipsters. Hipsters was amazing. I loved it. It was exactly like the description said it would be, and better. I had forgotten it was a musical, but I adored that aspect of it. I am glad we saw Disco & Atomic War before seeing this, because it assisted with our understanding of the film. I think I would recommend the film to anyone, even those who aren’t necessarily into foreign films. It was far and away the best film we saw yesterday.

Before the next film, we had another short break and used it to grab something to eat at the food court. Johnathan called his mom and we ended up inviting her to see a couple of films with us today. Then we headed in to see the German Shorts Program. After about three, we realized that short films perhaps aren’t for us. There were two animated ones that we saw that we just didn’t get, and then the others were a bit puzzling. We have two more shorts programs scheduled, and I think we’re going to go ahead and go see something else. They’re just not for us.

Instead of staying for the last film, we headed home. (We had planned to see Fire Keeper, but Johnathan wasn’t feeling it.) We stopped at Target and picked up the Toy Story blu-ray/DVD combo pack. They didn’t have Toy Story 2 so we went across the street to Wal-Mart to get that. Turns out that 2 is in a blu-ray case and 1 is in a DVD case. That’s going to bother the crap out of me. But we wanted to get both, and we’d already opened them both before we noticed. Oh well. So we came home early instead of watching movies in order to… watch a movie. I ended up getting very sleepy before we finished with it, though, so I went to bed. Got more sleep last night than I’ve gotten any other night this week! It was beautiful. Now I’m looking forward to another day of films that may or may not be great. Hopefully today won’t be a disaster since Johnathan’s mom is seeing some films with us.

Our first film of the day was Adrift, out of Vietnam. The description made it sound like it was an interesting story of infidelity and unrequited love. What it turned out to be was a very slow, very long story of infidelity that was mostly implied and unrequited love that was barely established. If I hadn’t known that was what it was supposed to be, I wouldn’t have caught it. It was really only okay. Nothing very impressive.

After that we had planned to see Fire in the Heartland, but owing to the fact that we missed Disco and Atomic War due to last-minute changes, we went to see that instead. It was totally worth the change. It was a documentary, but it was an interesting style which kept things interesting through the end. I also learned a lot. I was born during the cold war, but it ended a few years later, so I know really very little about it. (I also know little about the Vietnam war – apparently my generation was not meant to learn about it except from movies.) Now, I know… well, something about it. From an Estonian perspective. That’s something!

We had a long-ish break between the two movies, so we headed up to Hospitality Headquarters for a while. Then it was time to see Black Sheep. This one was on Johnathan’s list so I wasn’t super stoked about it. It was about a guy who worked on a sheep farm. He is at odds with the owner’s son, who is spoiled and vindictive, and in love with Maria, a girl who pretty much has the world at her fingertips and could have whoever she wanted. The story moved fairly slowly at first, but it seemed to pick up by the end. I liked the story and its plot twists. It was funny and kind of exciting at the right points. I really enjoyed it. Interestingly, Johnathan was a bit underwhelmed. Go figure, right?

Then we had another long break, so back to Hospitality Headquarters. My biggest “shock” was to see how empty the headquarters were during the day versus on the weekends or even in the evening. It was nice to walk in and know we could easily find somewhere to sit, and that the sandwiches wouldn’t be voraciously devoured before we even had a chance to get over to them. Our next film was Inside Hana’s Suitcase, which was a documentary about a little girl whose suitcase survived the Holocaust even though she didn’t. It was mostly a bunch of kids telling her story which was both charming and aggravating, at times. I had heard someone say that she cried her way through the film, and I thought that she was just prone to crying. Well, I… kind of did the same thing. It was a very interesting and emotionally-charged documentary. It was quite good.

Our next film was Japanese: The Bare Essence of Life. I knew it would be a little bit weird from the description, but I believe the description grossly understated the movie’s bizarreness. It was… too much. Too weird, too slow, too… too. We ended up walking out after about an hour of the two-hour film. At that point, we still hadn’t hit the crux of the story or even established what the central plot was supposed to be. So we left. First film we’ve walked out of – though not the first we wanted to leave. I hear it got a little less weird, but there doesn’t appear to have been anyone who was blown away by it.

After that, we went home. It was worth it to get home a little earlier than we had been in days. Didn’t go to bed earlier than usual, really, but it was nice to be at home for a little bit before we needed to be asleep. Also nice to have some milk again. I feel like as far as day 5 goes, it was kind of a “meh” day. Nothing really catastrophically bad, but nothing outstanding, either.

After that, we had another documentary, which I had high hopes for. Turtle is pretty popular; popular enough that they added another showing on the second Saturday. And that’s great! I thought, cool, a documentary about sea turtles! Yeah, uh. Well. It was really slow. Lots of downtime just watching the turtles, I dunno. Swim. I think if it had been cut down to about half an hour instead of an hour and a half, the film would have been much more engaging. Both Johnathan and I felt like it would be right at home at The Living Seas at Epcot. But we also both almost fell asleep during it at its current length. I’ll be totally honest: I’m not sure I get the hype over it. But it wasn’t bad. I guess you could call it anticipointment.

Then we had a bit of a break and headed to see Accident, a Chinese thriller film about orchestrated “accidents” for pay. Essentially, hits designed to look like freak accidents. It was slow in spots, but kept me feeling engaged throughout. There were some things that went unexplained that I think I got a handle on, but I’m uncertain. Maybe that’s the point. I liked it – would definitely recommend it, though I wouldn’t say it’s a “must-see”.

Our next film was supposed to be Divided We Fall, but after seeing Cosy Dens and realizing that there was a level of knowledge that we were missing in order to fully understand it, we decided to skip it. It was by the same director and while I’m sure it was good (Cosy Dens didn’t suck, after all), I didn’t want to go into a film that we weren’t positive we’d like. So at the last second, we ran to get in line for My Heart Goes Hadippa. Everyone I’ve overheard talking about it has called it a Bollywood Extravaganza, and it totally lives up to the title. It was entertaining and silly – and I think it knew it was a little bit ridiculous and that made it all okay. Johnathan has said it’s the shortest 2.5 hour film he’s ever seen. It was meant to be shown with an intermission, but they skipped it so that it would fit into the film block. I don’t regret making that last-minute change of plans. I loved the film.

Because we changed plans, we ended up missing our original pick of Disco & Atomic War by about 10 minutes. (It started at 9PM, but even though we booked it out of the theater before the credits even started rolling, we didn’t get out until 9:10.) So, rather than rudely go into a theater with a film already in progress, we decided to catch another one. We went to see Will You Marry Us?. It’s a Swiss film, and they spoke German (mostly) throughout, which we both found interesting. Not because they were speaking German, but because of how different it sounded from the German I’m used to hearing, which is primarily the northern German accent from, well, Germany. The film itself was really nice. It really was a fairly typical romantic comedy where things build and build until the crux of the film, then there’s that moment where you think things are done for good, and then it all works itself out. It was a feel-good movie. It was a nice way to end the night.

All in all, I’d say Sunday was a good day. I managed to misplace my Powell’s literature water bottle that Allison gave to me, and the hospitality headquarters (and everywhere else) were insanely crowded, but it was not at all a bad day. Onward to day 5!