neurological dryer lint

me and b and neef caught elf tonight. quality. really funny. and sappy. good mix of sappy and funny.

picked up the black album - and so far, it's not the best thing i've ever heard. nowhere near as good as hard knock life and not even close to the blueprint. hmm what else.. oh yeah got my docs that my sister picked up for me in england - they're PERFECT. totally excellent. nay, your birthday present is on its way. :)

and now i'm watching swingers with neef, who's never experienced it. ok, in that, let me get into how meaningful that movie is to me.

take it back to october 1997, beginning of my freshman year at UC. i'm an emotional wasteland because i just got out of my first long, deep relationship. by 'got out of' i mean 'got cheated on and dumped'. absolutely obliterated, feeling more alone than i've ever felt, hating life, etc. maybe you've been there. it was the first few weeks and i was still thinking about the girl every hour of every day and figuring out (1) what went wrong and (2) how i was going to get her back. spending a lot of time sitting in the room, moping. anyway, you get the picture. so i explain the situation to some friends in the wing. a day or so later, one of em is like 'you know, we need to watch swingers'. i say 'what's that?' the guys are like 'dude you've never seen swingers?' and it starts.

here's why this movie hit me so hard - mikey (the main character) was a frightening mirror of the state of my head - he's thinking nonstop about the girl who left him and he can't figure out why she won't call. he feels awkward with girls and just can't seem to get it right, which furthers that sense of detachment and loneliness. his friends seem like they can score any girl they want, like they've got it all figured out. what's he missing? all he wants is SOMEONE. he can't seem to ever escape the 'friend zone' with any girls he meets. in short, he feels like a dismal failure with no chance at escape. hope is fading away, as davey havok says. and i did the stuff mike did - i sat in my room looking over pictures and letters. i checked my answering machine ten times a day to see if she called. i was mike. the script fell out of my brain.

but the tide turns, as it always does - mikey's at the bar and sees the girl. he walks over. he's tried the 'act' - the action all his friends are able to pull off, the cocky, arrogant, macho crap. it always bombs. but then he goes for lorraine naturally and, good Lord, it works. he's HIMSELF and the girl digs it. really digs it. he's honest and it makes him a little more confident. and overnight he's forgotten about the girl who tore him apart. he's back in the game. he didn't have to act, to go outside himself - he's exactly who he is and it's enough.

i saw that movie and it changed my life. for a few reasons - first, you don't have to act like trent to appeal to someone. there's someone out there that will dig me for who i am. second - it made me realize how much i needed my brothers. otherwise i'm dead. i need backup bigtime. i need someone to remind me that i've got claws and fangs. i need someone to come over and drag me out of my house and bring me summer sausage and open the blinds and let the sun in.

but the most significant thing - it made me realize that life was going to go on. that was the single wall i could not scale - i figured life was over, i'll never recover from this loss, i'll be alone for the rest of my life, no one will ever want me. but turns out i wasn't really missing the girl, especially with the pain she put me through, and the generally terrible quality of the relationship - things i can see now that i couldn't see then. what i missed was the fact that i was with someone. the pain was still just as real - i struggled for months and months with it, in a lot of different forms. but rob (ron livingston's character) says it best - the reason we miss the girl so much is the same reason we miss the pain associated with our loss when it fades - because we lived with it for so long. "you wake up every day and it hurts a little less, and you wake up one day and it doesn't hurt at all." someone would care about me again. i couldn't see past the wall of hurt and rejection and stuff. but someone that understood - and someone that could tell me (and show me) that things would get better was really powerful. i WAS mike. and mike lived.

after i watched the movie i went outside. it was raining. i stood out there for a while and just looked up (it was a very end-of-shawshank look). it was the beginning of my recovery, and from then on, things just changed. seriously. stupid movie, go figure. :) but i feel like God knocked down walls for me with this movie and the guys i watched it with. more than any bible study or church or whatever - i see now how it 'opened the shades' around my heart that needed to heal (cheesiest thing i've ever written, sorry :)

strangely enough that was right when i was getting to be really close friends with this really cute sophomore girl named renee. i danced with her at a dance and she came to my 18th birthday party... and i couldn't stop thinking about her. we talked on the phone once in a while... she was SO frickin cute. and so sweet. and so imaginative and fun. and she liked the music i liked. i'd picture her face in my mind and it was like i entered a quiet room where everything else was gone. who knew i'd end up with her :)