so i finally get around to watching _the artist_.

unsurprsingly, i thought it was pretty good.

i have no idea why it took me so long to finally sit my ass down and watch it–it’s been at the apartment since around thanksgiving or something…surely a new record for me with netflix.  they actually started sending me extra pity discs or something lately because i’ve noticed i always have four around now, but i digress.

seriously, it’d become a joke. “oh, well, i guess i’ll just go home and watch _the artist_”.  usually meant something more like my version of tune in, turn on and drop out…my spin basically being the addition of video games.  anyway, i had every reason to believe i would like it, i have nothing against silent movies, i like dogs…i just

could.

not.

watch.

it.

now that i did, i thought it was good.  not a new all-time favorite, but good.  it’s no _singin’ in the rain_, but i loved the performances.  it was almost crushingly depressing.  i’ll probably watch it again in a few years and i’ll see what i really think then.

“this middle-agedness isn’t helping”

(from about 2009, but, as i say in the end, i am exactly the same person…)

Why do I have more confidence now and so much less success?  Is it just because I’ve absented myself from competition for so long and I forget how to do it?  I feel like I was always with a book, never making eye contact in my life, yet others made the effort.  Now, I guess, I have to work to be noticed…and that’s hard to realize.  Time never goes back.  You always, always have to work harder.

I know this sounds like sour grapes, but how can I not feel that other people have settled?  I’ve had some nice boyfriends in the past.  Paul was a nice boyfriend, for example, but I didn’t want to marry him…is this a flaw of mine?  Or is it some unreasonable expectation in my soul, borne of teenage romances and movies like _the breakfast club_ that made me think that we could have what we wanted, we could be appreciated, we could be happy, no matter what?  I’ve been fed a line that tells me to embrace myself for what I am and others will do the same, but it’s a lie.  No one wants an overweight iconoclast who thinks she’s just fine as she is.

I had two—three?—drinks at some random place that served food and drinks…and I talked, confidently, and I read my book…and nothing happened.  No one swept me off my feet, not one person paid me any mind.

I am middle aged.

But that’s not it…I don’t know what “it” is, but that certainly isn’t helping, that middle-agedness. 

There’s just something so funny about being a little drunk and coming home to my hotel room and watching the pilot to 90210.  It makes me miss a high school experience that I never even had.  I guess it just makes me miss youth?

I remember, even though we had weirdness and distance and jealousy, that Tanya and I were friends.  That tony cared about me.  That joe, always the most unstable, could do what needed to be done to pull me back from the abyss.  When my dad died, joe was there when everyone else was gone…and we made out on his couch and maybe that was too much.  I never did know what went wrong with joe, but maybe the whole things was my own misapprehension.  I always tend to think that what is important to me, be it making out on the couch or having some conversation, is important to other people…when, really, they probably just don’t care.

I just read my diary from the middle of 1987 to the summer after graduation. 

I swear to god, I am exactly the same person…I imagine that’s sort of fucked up.