don't.glomp.meBecause Happiness is Overrated

Day 02 – Your favourite movie
I’m a little bit masochistic.

I don’t like hurting others — I mean, more, I like to put myself through things that hurt me. I’m one of those self-destructors, who messes stuff up for themselves ’cause it’s what they’ve always done, and I’m sure it’s what I shall always do. I hate breaking habits, so I’m doubtful I’ll ever break this one. That’s fine.

But my sadistic streak runs deepest in me when it comes to movies.

I love a sobber. Anything that makes me cry, usually, is my kind of film. You’ll see what I mean when I start listing films. It used to be not too bad, but these days, my family class everything by how many times I cried in it. Walk the Line, for instance, was a “three sobber”. I cried in Thumbelina for god’s sake (when she thinks Cornelius is dead and is going to marry the mole…so sad!).

But my three and a half favourite movies? One sobbers, but, wow, did I cry. I’ll get to the half later.

My first film is the absolute epitome of good cinema. I doubt anything comes close to it in movie history. The acting, the setting, the lines, the story…all so delicious. But, it’s in black & white. I say “but”, even though I think the monochrome makes it so much better. But I know a lot of people get put off by black and white; don’t be, the film is worth it. It’s written by Noël Coward, one of the greatest playwrights and directors…ever. He wrote it originally as a play called Still Life, and then later became Brief Encounter. It’s a fantastic film, and I can hardly fault it. And god, does it make me cry at the end. Bittersweet is what I can best describe it as – the whole film is bittersweet. That famous last scene has got to be the best acting you’ve ever seen.

My second film is Brokeback Mountain. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Not just ’cause it’s gay cowboys, but because it seems like an odd favourite film. But this set me off into such an episode…the next week was spent bursting into spontaneous tears every time my mind wondered across it. I could hardly control myself, even though I didn’t cry very much in the film itself. Even thinking about it now, my stomach feels empty and cold. Literally, I felt like I might never feel happiness again. This one really spent my emotions.

Thirdly, Atonement. This one is just beautiful, and the plot twist, the whole film…it was the first time I was wracked with sobs. Before that, I cried. For Atonement, I wailed. So beautiful, so sad. I wish to read the book, if only my hate of Ian McEwan’s writing didn’t get in my way.

And for my half? Amazing Gracie (not Grace; Gracie) was a film done the BBC; so not really a movie. More like an hour long drama they put on a few months ago; maybe last year sometime, in fact. Again, this one left me feeling cold, and I cried so much I could hardly sleep that night. It’s about Gracie Fields, a singer during wartime, who I hadn’t heard of before this. I still don’t know much about her life outside the dramatised film, but god help me, if it bore any resembelance to this drama? Try and catch it somewhere, because, despite what you may think, it’s a damn good drama/short film, I promise you that!

Day 01 – Your favourite song

I know what you are doing Sinéad.

You’re going to realise what this is – a meme -  and you are going to judge me.

Judge all you like, but I want to keep my blog going, and for thirty days straight I will attempt to do that – or 30-ish days, since I’m sure to miss a few, or think of something better to post in between days. Just hear me out okay?

This meme is not a short questionnaire. It asks for indepth information about a person. You might learn something about me – people reading this blog certainly will! Besides that, each of these are quite likely to send me off on to some tangent. So stop judging. Just read on. And if my blogs about the meme subjects don’t change your mind, so be it. I can handle your judgement.

As you can see, the first day is a favourite song. This is a hard one. I mean, what is a good song anyway? And who are we to judge? Music is not just man made, after all, but also exists in nature. So I could say my favourite song is the sound of the morning. But then I start to sound like our friend Joe, and then I feel quite ashamed at myself. Hm.

So I can’t choose one. But I’ll try to. I’ll go through options and see what I’ll decide. The problem is, there are always those songs that play all through your life that you will always love. But I happen to have a hell of a lot of them, and then loads of songs I play to death until I cannot stand to hear them any longer. No You Girls, anyone?

Anyway. We’ll go for the most obvious first; oldies but goodies. Now I tried to think of something by the Bee Gees, or George Michael, who are two peopler I grew up with. By which I mean, their music, not them personally. That’d be crazy. But I couldn’t think of any particular songs which spelt my childhood to me. Then I thought maybe; Ironic. Since I heard it on Top of the Pops 2 many, many years ago, it became “my” song in my family (before that kind of faded and it got replaced by N Dubz, ’cause Dappy is my boyfriend – that is, according to my sister, who was so shocked that I recognised him, she was sure this must be the reasoning behind it). By Alanis Morrissette, I went to see her in concert with Ramon once – she was good, even if surrounded by middle-aged, head-thrashing punks, which is pretty disturbing when she’s singing girly, teenagey angst. But there is a problem; the song loses its appeal after a while. I still love it, but no where near as much. So what else?

Now here are the songs I am struggling most with. Three of them are by Elvis Costello. A few years ago, I went through a pretty embarassingly angsty time following some unrequited love (as Ramon put it on the t-shirt she had made for me, “unrequited love sucks”), and so an internet friend of mine sent me an MP3 file. Now she had done this with many – but some of them had been Placebo, and some The Cure. Just not my kind of music. So I couldn’t have been more surprised when – what’s this?  A practical love ballad? It seemed so. The song in question was I Want You, one of his more tragic songs (most of them have twists – like a song I’ll cover in a sec). It’s long – six minutes – but beautiful. At once point, it has over two hundred plays on my iTunes. I adored it – and I still do, but I admit to having worn it out a little. His second song is After the Fall, a beautiful song, one that I suspect is about two lovers torn apart by war – the soldier returning home, and them finding each other unfamiliar. If the second verse is not the most beautiful you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what is – “The ceiling was festooned with phospherous stars” is a personal favourite, but the entire idea of the verse is just marvellous.

Then, lastly from my Costello collection, we have All Grown Up, something that is just…ugh. So true about teenage years, at least for me. Just go look up the lyrics if you aren’t going to listen, at the very least, and you’ll go, “God, this is me” (if you’re a teenager).

I realise this is getting kind of long and rambly now so let me quickly go over the Smiths. Discovered when I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower two or three years ago, I began listening to Asleep. It took me a while to get into, and no wonder – it really isn’t their best song, though it is good, just a little too blantantly emo for Morrissey, in my opinion. I prefer This Charming Man, or maybe Ask. Or Sheila Take a Bow – “And don’t go home tonight, // Come out and find the one who you love and who loves you.” But I mustn’t leave out one of the most beautiful songs ever written by Morrissey – a solo song, and pure perfection. It’s called I Know Very Well How I Got  My Name, and is just love. Listen to it – seriously, it’s addictive to listen to, and Colin Meloy (lead singer of the Decemberists) also does a fantastic cover of it that I love. But then, everything Morrissey writes and sings is practically gold. Even I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris grew on me after a while. Is the man a God? I think so.

So yes. It’s a hard decision, and I just can’t decide, but these are all songs I adore, that you should definitely listen to. With some honourable mentions; Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying by Belle & Sebastian, I Fought in a War by Belle & Sebastian, Sylvia by the Antlers, Bear by the Antlers, Pure Imagination by…uuuuh. It’s from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, hm. And finally, Where the Wild Roses Grow by Nick Cave & Kylie Minogue (yes, really).?

Click read more if you want the full list of the thirty days so you can join in. I know you want to…

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So everyone in our little group of blogs is doing it right now. What are you waiting for? Why aren’t you?

I haven’t read any of their – your? who else reads this? – blogs yet. I’m just going to write off the cuff, and maybe it’ll have some vague relation to whatever you guys wrote. Let’s see if I can work out some structure here. I have a lot of thoughts about being in love, as well as some of this being probably quite self-reflective, so excuse the length.

Firstly, I have been watching Sex and the City this evening, and for the past few evenings, because of the presence of my sister in our home. This is never a good thing, since it is Carrie constantly talking about love. So perhaps I will pick up where she left off in tonight’s installment of the uber girly, uber sex filled, and uber secretly satisfying indulgent show; that love is a gamble. I get a lot of people asking me what the point is. I’m not an agony aunt, I just happen to be the first port of call for many people’s relationship advice. I know, I know. I have no clue why either, and I certainly wouldn’t encourage this behaviour; the last proper relationship I had was when I was nine, and that was hardly proper was it? I’m the love equivalent of a minefield; you’ve got to be careful where you step or I may explode into flames, and that’s never pretty. But nonetheless, my advice obviously means something to these people, because they often come back for more of it. And what I get sometimes – especially from an old friend of mine, although obviously given the term “old” I don’t get it anymore since we’re not that close any longer – is the inevitable question. Why bother?

We are young. The likelihood of us staying with these people for the rest of our lives, or, in the these modern times, for six months, is pretty low. It’s more likely to be a few weeks, maybe months, of either a loose, casual relationship, or something so intense you are smothered. It could last a year, maybe two. But the definite outcome of it is heartbreak. You will get your heartbroken, and you will wish never to fall in love again. Admittedly, as a minefield, I am more often the heartbreaker than the heartbroken, but it is a fact of life that I, and you, should willingfully accept. Most of us do, except for the naive ones. Everything ends in tears.

Now don’t get me wrong here; I’m a hopeless romantic. I cry at almost every rom com I see, and it leaves me feeling warm and fuzzy inside. When – or, rather, if – I take marriage vows, I would like to mean it when I say we will be together forever. I hate this idea of only lasting a few years. I like the idea of forever being forever. But as well as being a hopeless romantic, I am a realist. Or, as my friends say, a cynicist. Call me what you like, you know it is true.

So why? Why do we bother when we know what the outcome will be? Is it for the thrills? Is it because those good times in the relationship will always mean something more than the bad times? Is it because we want a new experience?

I say these things in answer. But I don’t mean.

What I do mean is; we are lonely.

Humans are inherently wired to want and need companionship. Men are wired to have mutliple partners – it is the sad fact of life that it is actually harder for a man to stay monogamous than for a female. We need the oxycitin in our blood, pumping round us, making us feel warm and fuzzy as a loved one strokes our cheeks, or lays down next to you. It is that giving you their jacket when you feel cold, or agreeing to eat your meal because you don’t like what you ordered, that gets those love hormones going. They make us feel loved, and, as humans, we need to feel that.

But don’t dismiss thrills altogether. Love is a gamble. It is a thrill. That thrill of being asked out, or asking someone out, or the first kiss, or the first time with your partner. It is all a thrill, something everyone cannot deny enjoying; even the most safe guarded amongst us will do a little private thrill seeking in our lives at some point, no doubt. And being with someone is part of that, relationships are. What is better than a little adrenaline pumping through your blood? Nothing, I say! (Believe me, I’m no risk taker, and that is perhaps why I savour adrenaline quite so much).

You get fucked, you get fucked over, you meet a sweet guy, at some point it’ll be over, you move on, meet someone else, you stay friends with some exes, you meet new friends through each relationship who might stay with you longer than your girlfriend/boyfriend.

There are a lot of downsides. There is the crushing blow of a heart being broken. But then there are those perfect – or so they seem at the time – lips to kiss that will, one day, make it all better. For a cynicist, I am sure optimistic about romance, hey?

I am fascinated by cracks.

Nothing is more interesting than the cracks that we wallpaper over. Never bother to fill them in, just cover them up and hope that eventually that no one will remember. The patch of new wallpaper will fade into the rest of the wall, and anyone looking will be none the wiser. They will see only a perfectly plastered wall.

Lies are delicious. But they are also cancers that rot away at things. Slowly, under that wallpaper, the crack is growing and soon whole wall will split in half…

While I am a misanthropist in nature, I still find humans fascinating. More than anything, I find relationships fascinating. And it is the cracks that make them quite so wonderful – so interesting to watch, so absorbing. How can anyone not want to watch them, see what the crack does to them? People do both amazing and horrific things when under pressure to hide flaws in relationships. I think it’s where my fascination in war fiction comes from. Because war breaks people down, ruins them. War changes people, and not always for the better. I hate war, but I love to watch people under the influence of it. Nothing dizzies me with such excitement as people during or after a war. It’s there you find the damage, the disaster, but also the beauty of what we, as humans, as disgusting, pathetic creatures, are. Because there is some beauty behind us, that is for sure.

But as much as they fascinate me, I realised today that almost all of my relationships have seriously huge and gaping holes I’ve covered over with a great amount of effort. Some of them will never be able to ignore, others, I can live with. It’s interesting. It’s interesting to look back on all the things, disasterly and stupid, that I and other people have done. Little words destroy years of work. Isn’t that an awesome sight? Sometimes you can rebuild – slowly but surely, you can fill the crack in, and it’s not so much ignoring but passing over it – to the point that neither of you even remember where the crack was anyway. But it takes great strength.

I am an oxymoron, a contradiction. I am a misanthropist who loves humans. But who can resist it? They hold so much of interest. I think it’s why I write (I would not call myself a writer), because I love our nature.

I have been meditating on this subject a lot lately. I should probably move off of it before I break something else. But then, I suppose, life would be boring if I didn’t, hey?

Driving has confirmed my hate of humanity.

You stall for about five seconds – and, today, the car who was waiting next to me was still half behind the stop line – and someone begins to beep! Before you even have a chance to turn on the engine! While you’re sitting, stunned, in a car stamped with “BRITISH SCHOOL OF MOTORING” and a huge L plate stuck to the front and back, wondering who the hell is in such a goddamn rush at 2:30pm on a sleepy Tuesday that they cannot wait three damned seconds for me to restart the engine!

I’m so sorry, I’ve only been driving for three months and stalled for the first time in three weeks, but we can’t all be fantastic white van drivers, m’fraid! The cold, hard truth of life is, you might have to wait another three seconds before you can shoot passed the stop lines!

Things like this leave me seething. Inconsiderate pricks. I have a L plate for a reason.

Now, there are a lot of things I hate about Christmas. When I tell people this, I usually get a lot of words thrown at me – “cynic”, “grumpy”, “jaded” etc. I think, given my age, they are probably right about the last one. But as for grumpy? I don’t think it’s really fair. Because, really, it’s easy to hate about Christmas. You just have to be in my constant bad mood to realise it. Like I said, there are a lot of things I do hate about Christmas, but I’ve managed to narrow it down to my top ten! Anyway, I’ve managed to narrow it down to ten things that really get my wick about the festive season. Here we go!

10. Christmas Cards
I’m sure everyone will be in agreement with me on this one. There is nothing worse than having fifty cards to write to people you never usually speak to during the year. People from your childhood, people you’ve met on holiday, your best friend’s cousin’s nephew’s dog’s breeder…the list is endless.

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