Here We Are Now

Our November Feature Film

Yesterday, I was sitting at work near Battery Park. Due to Sandy's path of rampage, the work day ended at 3 PM, which I couldn't have been more thrilled about since I had a twenty-block walk to my best (working) subway option and may have witnessed a case of assault over the last spot in the overcrowded train car that morning.

Also, the phone and heat weren't working. It's a bizarre sight, seeing the office function on half-attendance, its worker bees running to and fro in gloves and scarves (myself included). And suddenly my coworker and I looked at each other and agreed: October just flew the heck by, didn't it?

September, I think, was one of the longest months of my life, and I don't have the energy to go into why that is. The beginning of October, still in the chug of Chagim, plus nursing a cold that lasted way too long, seemed to grind to a near-halt. And then I got over my cold, handed in my first paper, visited an old friend for Shabbat, and blinked.

Now it's November.

The semester from another planet(!) is more than half over. This week, I handed in my second term paper, and I'm about to start a third. I feel like the tense few seconds after an intense action sequence in a movie, when the protagonist has lost the bad guy tailing him, and emerges from the vehicle to look around and make sure the danger has truly gone.

So cautious. But when I look around, the cop car or assassin's truck or whatever's been chasing the action hero isn't in my line of sight. I wonder for a minute if it's just waiting for the audience to exhale before it jumps onscreen again, but for the moment, it looks like I've got a second to breathe before getting back in the car and rushing to rescue the hostage or deliver the priceless artifact or pick your movie cliche.

Life's a little like the movies that way.

It's the age old question. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? Wonderfully horrible pun courtesy of Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis:

I couldn't resist. But anyhow...

Do we place such importance on certain life events, behaviors, pleasures, and wishes because we're wired to do it, or do we do the action because that's what we see in the media? Do we hold back what we're thinking because we're told that talking and revealing too much is a sign of weakness? After all, the hero of the story doesn't cry when he's hurt. He rips open his own shoulder and claws the bullet out with his bare fingers. Um, right. When I think of real life injury, I think of when I had to remove a splinter from my (male) friend's finger, only to have him whine and gasp that I was killing him slowly.

Do girls aspire to be thin, pretty, and fashionable because that's what's attractive, or because the girls on TV who are like that get all the guys?

And most of all, are we photoshopping ourselves like they do in magazines? Airbrushing the truth like celebrities on the red carpet? Is the real us too raw, too scary, to get ratings and put butts in the seats? Increasingly, there's an emphasis on TV shows, movies, and books that are successful because they're "real." But those aren't the ones we watch when we want to feel good. Those are the ones we relate to and draw parallels between ourselves and the characters. Often we decide they're too depressing. We're all suckers for a happy ending.

This friend and I were watching 'Moulin Rouge' last week. I had seen the movie loads of times, but it was her first viewing. We're both art majors, so we were fixated on the gorgeous visuals and cinematography (as dizzying and rushed as they are at times). And then, about halfway through the movie (spoilers!) she turned to me and said "Oh no! This is going to end sadly, isn't it?"

I pointed out that they reveal the end of the movie literally within the first ten lines of the opening scene.

Later, we were discussing the movie with another friend. "I always stop the movie halfway through," she said, "I don't like the ending." It's kind of interesting, since one of the plot points of the movie is a heated argument over how a play they're performing should end. The playwright's happy ending is the financier's tragedy, and vice versa.

And so today I'm wondering, are we in our situations for the sake of a happy ending? I'm not talking about living in the moment versus living for the future. I'm talking about when things get tough. When we work on a project and realize it's not going to turn out the way we wanted: do we scrap the project, or, as Tim Gunn always says, do we "make it work?"

For my part, I'm going to keep trying to make this semester work.

And now I'm going to stop typing, because my fingers are freezing and it's time to put gloves back on.

Megillah Project Continued

The paper-cutting phase of the project is done. There are a few little patches of color in the black, white, and gray, and now I've gone on to the text. The labor-intensive, super annoying portion of hand-writing every word of the book of Kohelet into this thing.

In pen.

I know it's been a bit longer than usual between updates, and that's for a very simple reason: for a while, I stopped working on it.

No, I didn't quit. But as I explained before, my inspiration for starting this project with Kohelet, and at this particular moment of time was, well, that I was having a hard time dealing. Going through some stupid crap, for lack of a more eloquent term. So every time I was having a moment of panic, sadness, anger or life-questioning, I would deal with it by sitting down and working on this project.

Thankfully, thank you G-d, those moments have of late been fewer and farther between. There's been some great new developments in my life, a couple of steps forward, more happy experiences that have made me think a lot less of those big scary monsters in life.

But in my determination to finish the project, I attempted to just do it. AKA, to work on it without life-questions, and I found that it either made me think of the things that were giving me a hard time in the first place (as counterproductive as you can get), or I'd slack off after ten minutes. The idea of falling back into moments of sad panic was so frightening that I stopped working on it at all. I didn't (and don't) want to feel like that any longer.

Then, on a good day, during an afternoon I was spending in lively computer conversation, I looked at that big, half-finished piece of work and thought, it's a process. I'm not going to put off the process. This piece, this work, represents a lot more than questioning and frustration to me. It's my process of working through a challenging time. And part of working though anything involves the good days, not only the bad. So I sat down to write, but kept the conversation going at the same time. And in a few hours of laughing and chatting, I had finished three chapters of Kohelet. That's a quarter of the way through the book. And when I stopped for the day, it wasn't because I was frustrated, it was because it was late at night and my back and head hurt from the hours of sitting there bent over a desk.

That's my favorite reason to stop working. Because you feel like you've done all you can for the day. It feels wonderfully productive.

So here's where the project is now:

I'm looking at a new challenge with it, namely the concern of whether I'll even be able to fit the whole text into the space allotted without making it "too busy," but I'll figure that out along the way (suggestions are welcome).

I'm looking forward to getting it done. Like my hard semester, I see an end date for this work, and I can't wait to reach it, and look at how far I've come since my first awful week of grad school.

Cow Creamer Philosophy

There's a short-lived TV show on DVD, by the same guy who made "Pushing Daisies," called "Wonderfalls." I think that when it aired back in 2004, it only lasted four episodes. Needless to say, it's kind of brilliant.

The essential plot of this show is that Jaye Tyler, a 24-year-old retail employee, starts hearing inanimate objects talk to her. They give her vague instructions like "Pick up that quarter," or "Make me a match," and each time she (reluctantly) listens, it sets off a chain of events that ends up helping someone in need. But why do I bring this up?

Jaye's brother Aaron (played by the awesome and crushworthy Lee Pace) is a theologian with several degrees in various religious studies, pursuing a PhD in comparative religion. He's a philosophical genius and hardcore atheist, never confused by any existential problem. Until he realizes his sister has received instructions from a porcelain cow creamer. And, well, watch the video:

I've always found Aaron's existential crisis scenes kind of hilarious, especially when he declares "meaninglessness in a universe with meaning...what does it mean?"When I rewatched the episode today, though, I found it less funny and more relatable.

I'm used to constantly questioning. I think that's a little of what life is about, the never ending search for meaning. I know what it's like to have a serious philosophical quandary and have someone laugh and respond with, "Are you high?"

Is it that weird to want to know what something means?

So one of the reasons I started rewatching Wonderfalls this week is because it's light and funny. But I also chose this specifically because it's about someone I find myself relating to.

Jaye Tyler is a graduate of Brown University, a writer, a philosopher. She's also a massive underachiever and misanthrope. She's lazy, sarcastic, and runs from every challenge, much more the type to stick her fingers in her ears and yell "lalalalalalalalalalala" than to hear a lecture.

Now, I don't really relate to any of these things. The thing I find familiar is that she's post-college, the youngest of three kids, living on her own but still very attached to her family, and very, very confused about what life's going to bring.

This week, I turned 24. For some reason, I've always placed an odd significance on this age. I remember being a little kid and telling my mom that 24 is the perfect year to be a grown-up. You know, get a job, get married, live in a house with a slide instead of a staircase because duh. 

But now, I'm 24. And I don't feel any closer to achieving anything than when I first got my acceptance letter to grad school. I know what I want out of life, which I guess is a pretty big thing. I know what I'm studying to become. I'm also living my life according to a philosophy/religion I find true meaning in. But I've also been having an uncommonly tough time with it this semester. And when I watched the scene with Aaron and the cow creamer, I think I figured out why.

Because I believe that life has meaning. I believe the meaning's out there, I just haven't found it yet, and I'm comfortable with the idea that I may never find it, that it might not be meant for human beings to understand. But that also leads me to believe that MY life has meaning, and that's something I probably AM meant to figure out and understand for myself. And that's where we hit a hitch.

I know what I WANT my life to mean. I know what my skills are, and I'm trying my best to utilize them in order to achieve that meaning. But then again, I'm also a confused post-college intern who can't seem to find what she's looking for. Instead, I've been finding out a lot of things about human behavior that I never wanted to know.

I feel like I've figured out what's wrong, made the doctor's appointment, and now I'm just in the waiting room, looking at my watch and wondering when I'll receive treatment. I feel like anything I get now is just a magazine or a text message to pass the time.

I'm 24 years old, and I've just left some things I really liked having behind and turned to a new, very scary world I'm not sure I like at all. But I can't stick my fingers in my ears and yell "lalalalalalalala." I see people everywhere doing just that. I want to hear the advice. I want to hear the cow creamer tell me what I should do, just to get going to where I know I want to be.

Post-Storm

I hope everyone's ok.

I hope you're all safe and dry.

I wish I was helping more. There's not much I feel I can add or say, that others haven't put much better, before. I feel like there's not much left I can say. I wish I wasn't starting every sentence with "I."

The donations have been dropped off. Water has started to recede. There have been fires and floods. Thank G-d, I've seen none of it.

We're so damn lucky.

Sending my thoughts and prayers to those who weren't so much.

Please do your best, be your best. I'll try to be mine.

There's got to be more than this. There's got to be more than just an unfortunate storm.

Let it matter. Let something matter.

Hurricanes. Cleanup. Let's go.

Fortune Cookies and Other Sources of Wisdom

The thing with going through a scary, confusing time in your life, especially when you're trying to figure out your life, views, and future...

...is that you suddenly start to hear all of those cliched pieces of advice that so many TV Specials and tea labels have to offer. And of those sayings, you find the ones that apply, and make sense, and occasionally even help. 

So now that things look a little better than they did a month ago, I've discovered a few immortal truths. Some are deep and oft-quoted, some are stupid and true nonetheless. Here are what I'm calling my October lessons:

1. If you're so stressed you can't think and your campus is offering free back rubs on Wednesdays, for the love of G-d take the back rub.  

2. Running away never solved anything. If you must run, make sure it's toward something and not just away from responsibilities and all of those scary things that make up life. 

3. Courtesy of my awesome friend: "Everything will be alright in the end. So if it's not alright, it's not the end."

4. Fortune cookie fortune I found in my coat pocket when I took out my autumn coat for the first time this year: "The major value in life is not in what you get now, but in what you become."

5. Another fortune cookie: "The most important relationship you have is the one you have with yourself" or the other version of the same advice: "If your friend spoke to you the way you sometimes speak to yourself, would you continue to be friends with them?"

This one especially was one I had to deal with when I realized that I've really got to work on this self-esteem thing I keep hearing about.

6. Watching Germans sing about Russians while dressed like Mongolian warlords will solve all your problems for five blissful minutes. 

7. Courtesy of Pushing Daisies (moment of silence): "A hug is an emotional Heimlich Maneuver. Someone puts their arms around you and squeezes real tight and all your fear and anxiety come hurling out in a big, wet wad, and you can breathe again."

8. William Safire: "The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right."

9. "If you truly want something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse."

10. And the awesome Neil Gaiman: "MAKE GOOD ART."

It's autumn. I read a quote today somewhere on the internet which claimed autumn as the perfectly balanced season. Well, as a Fall Baby who loves autumn colors and all pumpkin-flavored things, I agree. And I gotta say, now that I have some perspective back, I realize I'd have to be nuts not to enjoy this season of cool breezes, pumpkin pies and kosher lattes, sweaters without winter coats, boots without wool socks, bat-themed merchandise, and not-quite too early sunsets. I love this season. I'm going to spend the rest of it trying to remember what I learned so far and enjoying what I've got until I figure it all out. 

Megillah Project Again

For those who haven't seen them, here's the Megillah Project Parts 1 and 2.

I've finished the black and gray layers, which means that most of the cutting is done. There's still all of the text and the smaller color patches left. But still, this is a big step in terms of this project.

I'm seeing it as finishing the first stage of the process, of the semester, of the crazy. It feels awesome, like throwing a huge weight off.

Funny how this comes right when things have been turning around in life, too. A few good days, handing in my first paper, giving my first presentation, meeting some great new people, reuniting with some old friends.

It's like I've come in from the cold, and while it might not be summer out yet, I can at least take off the first, gray, heavy layer.

Here's what it looks like so far:

Three and a half feet long and that's where it's going to stop. I think I've been letting this thing spread long enough. Time for the next stage :-)