Lie to Me

I could have been good for you, if you had let me.  In a different world, a different time, maybe a different set of circumstances.  I could have been what you needed.  Wanted, even.  We could have been happy.  Content in our lives, enjoying each other’s company.  I know we could have been good for each other.

But somehow I wasn’t good enough for you, in ways I’m sure I will never be told.  Rather than be honest with me, you chose to cut me out of your life at the drop of a hat, leaving me forever wondering what grave error I committed to deserve such treatment.  You didn’t have the decency to tell me a damn thing, and somehow I feel like that’s my fault.  Like I didn’t deserve the truth in the first place.

I hate that we aren't talking right now.  Like, it actively, physically hurts me.  I have all these things that I want to tell you, and normally I know you would care about, but you don't care and you don't want to hear them and it hurts.  Last night, for instance, I went to a G&E party for an indie film and met all of these amazing film people.  We laughed, we drank, we bonded over stupid things.  You would have loved it.  The stories they told, and the people they knew!  It was so much fun, and all I wanted to do was to tell you about it.  But I can't.

I get that I put you in a bad situation, and that I said something I shouldn't have.  I understand that what I let slip hurt people.  I can see why you need time to cope with it and that there is a level of trust that was broken.  I can't express how sorry I am in words.  I never meant to hurt anyone, least of all you.  I'm still not sure how any of it reached the level of intensity that it did.  I hate that we can't talk about it and try to figure things out.  I hate imagining that you glare or roll your eyes when you see my name or that you would actively avoid me.  We've been each other's best friends for so long, and it scares me to think that that could be over.  I don't really know what to do with myself.

I want to be able to tell you the stupid things that happen throughout the day - the people I overhear, the random thoughts that pop into my head.  I want to be able to ask you random questions as they pop up into my head.  I hate having to suppress that urge, to go against my initial reaction of just asking things and telling you what is on my mind.  I know that it will take time to get back to normal, but I hate this period right now where I can't say anything or do anything.  You told me to wait, and I'm trying as hard as I can.  It just hurts like hell in the interim.

It's easy to blame me, and in some ways, I guess it makes sense.  I should've had your back better than I did.  I was watching everything play out and I felt entirely helpless to the situation.  But ultimately, I didn't do this.  I didn't make it happen, I didn't plan or scheme it.  I was trying to be a friend and somehow, this time, it wasn't enough.  I've never not been there for you, in whatever way you needed, and that won't ever change.  I wish there was a way that I could make you see that.

I sincerely hope I didn't completely ruin everything.  I hope that some day you can see that I wasn't trying to be malicious, and I wasn't trying to be stupid.  One thing came out of my mouth, and before I knew it, it had completely exploded in my face.  It was out of my hands and I had no control over anything anymore.  I couldn't stop it, I couldn't control it, and, worst of all, I couldn't even tell you because you weren't speaking to me.  I'm so, so, so sorry.

I just really miss my best friend, and I want him back.

Carnage

She left a trail of wreckage everywhere she went.  Hearts trampled, lives in ruin, and she just kept moving forward.  She didn't do it on purpose.  She didn't relish it.  She didn't even know it had happened most of the time.

She didn't care.

Kate, never Katherine, put herself first.  She was narcissistic and self-serving.  She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and she didn't think any further than that.

Kate hated herself.  Not because she hurt people or thought only of herself, though. She hated herself because in her eyes she was as imperfect as a person could be.  She hated her hair and her smile.  She loathed the little extra weight she had gained last winter and couldn't shake, and she hated the way her arms looked in tank tops.  She felt dumb.  She believed the world was against her and that the only way to survive was to stand steadfastly against the world.

She was plagued with indecisiveness, and still never seemed to choose correctly.  School, work, sex.  It didn't matter.  She'd find a new passion, get bored, and move on.  She didn't go back to things or give them a second shot.  Her house was filled with half-finished projects in media that previously held her attention.  In her dining room, she kept an easel with a chalk drawing of half of a horse.  Her dining room - which never held a table - was filled with instruments she never bothered to pick up.  Her bedroom held the beginnings of comic book, documentary, and art house film collections.  She hadn't even glanced at them since they were added to the appropriate pile.

Kate dated, a lot.  She'd pick a guy for a few months, cheat on him a few times, and then somehow make him feel like he had messed everything up by caring too much.  She'd walk away, and she would find someone new.  Everyone she dated would have sworn they were in love, that their futures were intertwined, until the moment she unceremoniously ended it.  Some were so unlucky they never got an official end.  She'd just stop responding to texts, refuse to answer the door when they rang, and ignore their presence if they happened to end up in the same place.  Poor guys never saw it coming.

She really didn't care, either.  Her friends tried to understand.  They would make up excuses for her, trying to console those left in the wake or to justify to themselves their friend's decisions.  No one ever could grasp her apathy toward others.  Even they often wondered if they would be ostracized next, deemed unworthy or unnecessary.  Kate was hard to love, and yet everyone seemed to want to love her.

Kate didn't want to be loved by anyone that had ever showed he attention, save for one.  She had lived the ultimate cliché.  She had given her heart to a man - boy, really - who had held it in his hand just long enough for her to become comfortable, before he squeezed it until it burst.  He threw it back into her face and told her she would never be good enough.  He had no idea what he had created.

She had people who cared.  People that wanted to be let in further, to get to know the gentle soul they thought they saw peeking out from the shadows.  She leaned on them, sometimes, but she felt like she was unworthy of their time, and that they could never understand.  Isolated, independent, self-reliant.  Kate didn't like feeling indebted to someone.  She didn't like feeling lesser.  But she didn't know how to feel any other way, so she avoided it by just not letting people get close.

Kate was broken.  She came across as arrogant, but inside she felt minuscule.  She had given up trying to find a fix.  Now she just focused on trying to survive.

10:31 pm.  18. 7. 13

I'm having a bit of a strange night.  Strange weekend maybe.  Hell, strange week?

Last weekend was wonderful and horrific for reasons you've probably already heard about.  Safe to say, they set me up to begin the week more exhausted than I normally am by the end of a normal week.  Then with work and school and life, it was just a long, wearing week.  I spent Friday night watching The Road to El Dorado and drinking.  Not to excess, no worries there.  Today, I went to a movie and came home with nothing to do and no one to talk to.  Kind of a strange feeling, not going to lie.  So I marathoned Bones, got bored lying on the couch, and pulled every comforter, random blanket, and pillow I possess into a giant pile on my living room floor.  I basically nested, in the childish way, not the pregnant way.  And here I've been, curled up on the floor in a pile of fluff and material ever since.  It's pretty comfortable, to be honest.

Is the choice of activities this weekend a sign of regression?  After the stress of last week, am I choosing cartoons and floor campouts as a way to revert back to a part of my life that is less stressful and was more carefree?  Or maybe I'm just going crazy because I'm used to having someone to chat with, and everyone has somehow found something else to do the last couple nights?  Or maybe I'm just so bored that I needed to find something -- anything -- to mix it up a little bit?  I don't know.

I'm not really even sure why I'm writing, because I don't feel like I really have anything to say.  Perhaps I'm creating an outlet for verbiage since I don't have any other outlet right now.

Clearly, I'm hypothesizing too much about myself.  Stop psychologizing yourself, Sisco.  Save it for coworkers and people you see in stores.

Side note: If my neighbors keep smoking this much pot, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a contact high.  Seriously, guys, it smells awful.  Lay off.  I'm guessing their mother is out of town on a trip again.  At least they're quiet when they're high?  It's something

I'm tired but I don't really want to go to sleep.  Going to bed now almost feels like defeat.  That makes no sense, I know.

I'm just going to stop before my ridiculousness gets the best of me and I get super crazy.  Maybe that's just the residual pot in the air.  Who knows.

This was a lot of nonsense.  Sorry.  Maybe next time it'll be more worth your time?  That of course implies that reading my rambling is ever worth your time, which I'm not convinced is true.

If the neighbor does not stop saying HULLO into his phone, I'm going to start responding.  And with that, I'm out.

11:25pm 29.6.13

Schenectady.

It's unusual to me to see movies with distinct acts anymore.  Sure, you can tease out story points and changes in tone.  You can track character arcs and suspect what may be coming next.  But to see legitimate acts, changes in focus from one character to another, with tonal qualities that are represented not only in the characters but in the film itself?  I feel like that's an art that isn't well-represented nowadays. 

And then there's The Place Beyond The Pines.

It's billed as a Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper movie about good guys and bad guys, cops and robbers.  It appeared in the trailers as action and suspense, with drama and maybe a love story thrown in for good measure.  I guess on the surface, that's an accurate representation.  Yet….not at all. 

I can't really figure out the right order to address all of the things in my head, so I'm just going to jump right in.

First of all, it's not a Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper movie.  It's a Ryan Gosling then Bradley Cooper movie.  The two characters share a scene together - a brief but intensely important scene that sets up the end of Act I and the beginning of Acts II and III.  When Gosling makes his swift exit, Cooper steps in to take the reins.  Gosling remains a presence through the rest of the film, but he is not shown again other than in a picture at the end.  Our bad guy has been defeated, ultimately, and our good guy has appeared to enjoy the spotlight.

Act I is the story of a tattoo-covered Gosling who learns he's a dad and tries to find a way to provide for his child - using his unique skillset and a friend's knowledge to rob banks.  As you can surmise, this doesn't end particularly well, leading to Gosling's departure from the film, through a window, early on. 

The cop who cornered our anti-hero becomes our new focus, single-handedly bringing down the corruption in his police department and working a promotion to ADA into the deal.  He's smarter than everyone around him and uses it to his advantage, all while caring for his own small child and wife.

Fifteen years pass and it appears that our old cop friend is now making a run for Attorney General, while working with his now-ex-wife to raise their teenage son.  Cooper takes a backseat here, to let his boy Avery (or AJ) take the lead, splitting the screen with new friend Jason.  These two become our third act focus, as we anxiously wait for the reveal that these two are more intimately connected than either could possibly be aware.

So three acts, each with a totally separate focus.  The narratives are clearly connected, but our POV has an effect on how we comprehend what we are seeing.  The filmmakers aren't satisfied with just giving us a new perspective, though.  The ways that they crafted the acts were impressive in and of themselves.  I'm not well versed in lighting and camera use to go into a lot of details, other than that there were choices clearly made to make each act look distinct, while still keeping the overall story uniform.  It was subtle, and it was wonderful to see. 

I can say though that I was particularly drawn to the use of shaky cam throughout the film.  In Act I, with Gosling's story front and center, there were scenes that didn't make a ton of sense to me to use shaky cam.  He wasn't necessarily running or jumping or doing anything crazy to necessitate it, but then it clicked.  The shaky cam was somehow tied to his emotion.  When he was panicking, or angry, or unstable, the shaky cam became more noticeable.  It was the strongest during the last couple scenes of Act I, as Bradley Cooper's character was introduced and Gosling's was reaching out to anything that could save him, trying to come to terms with the inescapable position he had gotten himself into.  And once that was over, the shaky cam ceased.  Cooper's character was much more self-sufficient, self-aware, and self-confident.  He did was was needed, he made decisions that were sound, and he stuck by them with surity.  The shaky cam only came back in bits and spurts after that, when things got hectic or panicked again - but never as long or as intensely as it was used with Gosling.  As we entered Act III, the shaky cam came back just a little bit - whether this was to tie Gosling's son to his father or just to show the imbalance within the two boys, I'm not sure.  But when they were steadfast in their decisions, the camera held still.  The more I think about it, the more this decision just seems genius.  Maybe they didn't plan it that way, but man did it work.