Stuck In Love Soothes My Woes

I've been on quite the Netflix binge recently. Due to the absolutely ridiculous weather that we've been having (Seriously?! A 40 degree swing in less than 16 hours? Really?! Highs in the negative degrees? What IS this place?), I just hang out mostly and watch movies that are streaming on Netflix. I recently watched one called "Stuck In Love", which I actually really liked.

I want to caveat by saying that I have very low expectations of Netflix, since I'm usually stuck watching ridiculous things like "Biozombies from Outer Space Part 5" or something like that (usually it's recommended by Max, which I think is absolutely ridiculous because they sunk a bunch of money into this thing that is very unlikely to actually tell me what I want to watch, especially because the most recently watched list is probably so crazy varied that it would be hard to pin down anything I like to watch). ANYwho.

So Stuck In Love focuses on a man who is a famous author. He has two children, an older girl and a younger boy, who he is desperately hoping will become authors as well some day. He has recently divorced his wife (~1 year ago) and is sleeping with the (married) neighbor down the street while not so secretly hoping that his wife will come back. From the children's perspective, it's a movie about growing, trying to figure out who you are and, in the son's case, learning just how freeing/awesome/terrifying it is to be a young adult and actually be able to make your own decisions for the first time in your life. Watching it as a 28 year old, I felt strangely torn between the two main roles in the movie. Was I supposed to relate more to the guy's kids? They're growing and maturing and trying to figure out their lives much like I am, but at the same time, I'm a little too old to try to pretend that I'm as naive as they are. Yet, I am too young to really relate to the man in the movie-- I'm not a divorcee, I don't have children, I'm not left pining over a life of what could have been (okay, I lied, I am constantly agonizing over the decisions I've made in my life and trying to figure out if I made the "right" ones, so I guess maybe I am more naive than I think). But there's something about his life that calls me to me as well-- he's lonely because he is thrust into an unfamiliar situation where he just isn't sure what to do, he is constantly feeling adrift by not being able to relate to those that he's supposedly closest to, and he feels like he's in limbo between what was and what could be. I can relate to all those things, and I haven't even had my mid-life crisis yet.

Regardless, I would highly recommend this movie. It's filled with the happy parts that make you long for your family, sad parts that make you think back to the first time you fell in love (I heard the first cut is the deepest, or so the 80s tell me) and some truly awesomely awkward parts that make you miss those weird growing years while silently relishing the fact that those are behind you. It does have a happy ending.

Just Chicago Things

So there is this site out there called "Just Girly Things" on Tumblr (http://justgirlythings.tumblr.com/) which, does not amuse me directly, but amuses me greatly through the many spoofs that happen (What can I say? I'm bitter about love.)

So, I was inspired to do "Just Chicago Things". Here's my first attempt:

4 Lifeguards Make More than the $109K Median Income in Newport Beach, CA

 I read this article on Bloomberg today.  It made me depressed that the MEDIAN INCOME is $109K and that the normal home price there is $1.5M. Seriously?!

And I'm over here like a shmuck trying to pay for business school at the lousy tune of $160K for two years. It's practically a deal! Or, on the flip side, two years of school could have been foregone to provide me with ~1/12 or the way to a smaller bungalow in Newport Beach. Poor life choices.

They keep making it sound like privatization of municipal services is some awful thing, but I'm actually okay with it. Privatization has been proven to result in overall increases in efficiency, lower costs and higher quality of services.

Also, how the hell are we saving 800 people a year on the beach?

Happy New Year!

Ahh... it's the new year... a whole season dedicated to me making promises to myself to eat better and exercise more and then eat my sorrows away indoors because it's (literally) -36 degrees outside. I don't know how I feel about this whole Polar Vortex thing, but I know for sure that it's definitely cramping my style. With the new year comes the realization that I really only have about 6 more months of school before it's time for me to pack up my bags and literally move my life across the country so that I can be a big kid and pretend to have one of those... what are they called again... oh yeah, careers.

Anywho. The best thing about winter break though is that there is a set amount of time put aside for me to read and listen to music and catch up on magazines and basically do all those "normal people things" that I never actually have time to do. I read a lot during this break because I had lots of downtime between airports and layovers and generally pretending that I'm retired (my favorite thing to do on my vacations) by pretending that I have an unlimited amount of time to do leisurely activities. I read Dan Brown's new book, a Jack Reacher novel, the new Superfreakonomics and this book called 1Q84. I gotta say, 1Q84 really blew me away.

I didn't know really what to expect, but this is, from now on, going to be the bar by which I'm going to measure all other authors, but specifically Japanese authors against. There are a lot of Asian influences in the book, top being the fascination with the concept of time (What is time? Does time flow linearly? What if it didn't? Does time mean different things to different people?) and the idea of fate or destiny. SPOILER ALERT In the story, a serial killer, Aoname, reeling after the loss of a good friend finds a new friend with which to have orgies with strangers. Meanwhile, Tengo, a budding author decides to ghost-rewrite the story of a young, 17 year old girl and submit it for a writing contest, which they win. The young 17 year old girl, Fuka-Eri, is the product of a cult lifestyle and may not be fully human. The cult tries to kill Aoname after they find out she has killed their leader because he is a raging pedophile. Aoname becomes pregnant with Tengo's child even though they've never met. Yup, this story gets strange, but it's a great read to get weird with. Seamless story-telling and a haunting story leaves you asking fundamental stories about what you, the reader, believes. Is there such a thing as fate? Do the ends justify the means? Does true love exist? What is true love, anyway?

Highly recommend. It's kind of an epic read, so make sure to set aside the time, but it's well worth it. I can say that this book has changed the way I think!