A Learning Kind of Weekend

This has been another fast-flying weekend. It seems like it was just Friday evening and now, already, I have to think about what to wear for work tomorrow.

Still, it has been a good weekend. It's actually been a good weekend for learning. I think probably every weekend is a good weekend for learning but this one in particular has been quite education.

For example, I learned that Possibly-Joe is actually named Matt. This is good because I know longer have to awkwardly stumble around trying to figure out what his name is without having to ask. I learned his name from his mother who I met this weekend. It's rather a relief, let me tell you.

I also learned that carving pumpkins can cause bruises. I spent Friday night having a lovely 'Pumpkin Night'. This involved my annual tradition of watching the first "Harry Potter" film while carving my pumpkins. I also made curried pumpkin soup for dinner which I served in a mini pumpkin as my bowl and drank a pumpkin martini- a 'pumpkintini', if you will. Normally, I drink pumpkin beer but I'm having a hard time finding any this year so I tried something different. Anyway, I carved three pumpkins. By the end of the night, the sides of my wrist and forearm were sore from where I had constantly rubbed them on the rim of the pumpkin while scooping out the insides. When I woke up on Saturday, I had some bruises. I found this quite entertaining actually- I do scrape and scoop my pumpkins with vigor.

I also learned that if you suspect a movie is going to be silly, you probably shouldn't pay $7.50 to see it. I went to see "Paranormal Activity 3". I only went to see it because the first one inspired me to write "The Reluctant Demon" and I felt like since I'd seen the other two, I should see the third one. I find those movies a little like going on a roller coaster- they make you jump and build up the anticipation but when you leave, you sort of wonder why you went on it in the first place. By the way, I'm probably going to spoil the film so if you want to see it and not get spoiled, you can skip ahead in the blog. Part 3 certainly had some of those "boo!" moments where it made me jump but I'm actually a little sad the filmmakers felt compelled to explain why the demon was haunting the girls. I have complained in the past that the demons in movies do all sorts of things to scare the homeowners/people around them but it seems a little silly- why not get to killing the people if that's their end goal? Why rearrange furniture, slam doors or run around in the attic? In the case of "Paranormal Activity 3", some vague witchy explaination is given for what the demon wants and you realize it's chosen it's hauntees on purpose. Yet, naturally, it does a lot of door slamming, running around and peculiar things with sheets. This particular demon also manifests itself an imaginary friend to a little girl. His name is Toby. Toby is apparently very old and tall according to the little girl. Yet, in a scene in the movie, the demon is caught on camera creeping up on a babysitter with a sheet over itself- a bit like Caspar the Friendly Ghost. The camera is mounted on a fan so that it osciallates so in one room, you see the "ghost" and then when the camera oscillates back around, the "ghost" has moved behind the babysitter and then, "poof!" the demon vanishes and the sheet tumbles to the ground.

The thing is, the "ghost" is not taller than a child. I'm sorry but if a demon is only four feet tall, is it really that scary? It should have been a taller "ghost". Also, I learned that if you're a man that likes to videotape things because you have a demon in your house, you're going to get killed by Katie Featherstone- she's the girl from all of the "Paranormal Activities". She's now killed three photographers.

So, overall, I learned that if my instinct is that a film is not going to be good, I should probably just rent it because otherwise I'll always be annoyed that I didn't listen to my instincts better.

Finally, I learned that this song I keep hearing on the radio and getting stuck in my head is called "Pumped up Kicks" by Foster the People. I don't even know if I like the song- all I know is that it gets stuck in my head terribly. I originally thought it was "all the other kids like thier bomb bomb daddies" (don't ask where that came from, that's just what I kept thinking they said. Then I thought it was "all the other kids like their pumped up kitties". Yes, that is a true statement. Now I know they're actually saying "pumped up kicks" but I'm not sure what that means. I have a vision of those shoes from a few years ago that you used to pump up by pushing a 'button' the the tongue of the shoe. That's probably not what they mean but I'm too lazy to google it. I don't particularly like having that song stuck in my head but I suppose it's good to know the actual lyrics.

I'm sure I learned many more things but these are the big lessons. I bet you thought I was going to say I learned something meaningful, didn't you? I probably did but it's not coming to mind at the moment. Thus, I'll stick with the valuable facts that I have, in fact, learned this weekend.

Now it's winding down but there's still time to learn something else new... I'll keep you posted. Happy Monday!

A Simple Lesson from a Squirrel...

It's a gloomy, dark, rainy Tuesday today. The rain started hammering my windows at around 2 a.m. and though it's slowed, I don't think it's really stopped. It's currently drizzling, the clouds deep and heavy. It's also much, much warmer than it has been. It's supposed to be over 60 degrees today. It's very springlike. It's a nice lull from the cold freezing temperatures and blanket of snow and ice.

I don't think this means it's spring though. Not yet. The grass has reappeared now the snow has mostly melted and it's still that dull, tired brown of winter. The newness of spring still waiting to reveal itself. There are also still patches of snow that loom in the shade. They're melting and, as they do so, the cold of the snow collides with the warm of the air and a hazy mist hangs between snow and sky. It looks like something from a fantasy novel, as though you'd step into the snow patch and be taken to an alien place, a world that exists seperate from ours.

Don't you wish, somedays, that you could do that? I have, even since I was a child. I read books about made-up-lands that appeared at the tops of trees, lands that existed on the other side of wardrobes, worlds where vampires existed, brutally and romantically. Even as I'm older, I still like to read books that take me away, books like Harry Potter where magic truly exists. I'm old enough to know it's all fiction but young enough that sometimes I wish it wasn't.

I think the days that it's easiest to wish that are the days where we feel like we're stuck in a rut. For me, it's when my job isn't exciting and I feel that a trained monkey could do it. Sometimes it's a day when I have the hope of romance only to have it dashed by the reality of emotional baggage. It's also days when my email account holds rejections from agents when I was so certain that one of them would at least want to see more of what I can do. It's days when I sit down to write and all that flows is a regurgitated version of someone else's work rather than an original, extraordinary idea of my own.

I'm having one of those days today. As I drove in, I got stuck at a stop light and I watched a squirrel smoothly hope from one side of a telephone wire to the other. It wasn't one of those scary electical wires that threaten to fry the squirrel but one of those bundled packages that hang high above, the casing around the bundle providing a safe passage from squirrels. I admired that squirrel. He had a place to get so he hopped along to it. He didn't falter, he didn't slip, he didn't even seem to be looking where he was going. He just knew. He trusted his feet to get him there and they did. He reached his goal with nary a thought.

Somedays, I wish life was that easy. The path that lays before us never seems quite that easy to find. There's too much in the way, whether it's real obstacles or ones that exist in our mind. So we don't hop forward, boldy, as the squirrel did. We stop and try to keep looking down and though we might see the path, our caution makes it slippery and uncertain. For me, the path is always shrouded in self-doubt: "what if I'm not supposed to do this?" "What if I'm not good enough?" "Why do I always get rejected?" "Why can't it be easy?"

The thing is, I don't think it's supposed to be easy. As I've said in this blog before, it feels more worthwhile when it isn't easy. If I do succeed with writing or life, romance or my job, it'll feel like I earned it. The hardest part is keeping my feet on the path that lays before me, even if I can't see it. I have to just trust that it's there and go with my instincts and, one day, like that squirrel, I'll have achieved my goal, even if it's just staying on a path and getting to the other side because that, in itself, is a prize and accomplishment.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy this rainy Tuesday. We're supposed to have thunderstorms tomorrow. If there's one thing I love almost as much as snow, it's a good, powerful Midwestern storm. There's nothing like it. Considering I used to be terrified of storms, the fact that I revel in them nowadays is an accomplishment. And, the ironic thing is, I never had to think about it. I just let it happen.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned there.

Happy Tuesday.