My Moment

Many thanks for the comments on the new layout. In truth, it was built around the pictures of Reese because at the the time, they were just so pretty. However, in the past few months since I began constructing this "masterpiece" (lol!), I'm actually glad I chose to feature her simply because some of the remarks she has made both when I saw her on Oprah and in a recent issue of Marie Claire.

"...Creating a cultural icon out of someone who goes, 'I'm stupid, isn't it cute?' makes me want to throw daggers at them! I want to say to them, 'My grandma did not fight for what she fought for, and my mother did not fight for what she fought for, so you can start telling women it's fun to be stupid.' Saying that to youung women, little girls, my daughter? It's not OK."

While I usually don't jump on my feminist soapbox, something stirred in me when I read that and I just wanted to applaud loudly because she couldn't have said it better. We have become a nation obssesed with women who do nothing but show up at every party in dresses the size of washcloths and all of a sudden, they're famous and they have a huge empire of crap. Not that this isn't smart because trust me, if I could make a shitload of money, be on the cover of every magazine and have every person want to watch my every move just for being pretty, I'd market the hell out of it. But it's not cool anymore and it really takes away the spotlight from those who deserve it, the women outside of Hollywood who work to make the world a better place by using their minds and not their looks, and by using their determination and intelligence and compassion to make their way in the world instead of relying on a trust fund and a pretty smile.

* Steps off soapbox *

Casey, Kathy and I went to see Elizabethtown tonight and now I sit here thinking back on it and I just want to jump in my car and drive. I've taken a road trip by myself before - I drove home to Pennsylvania from North Carolina, but it was nothing but four to six lanes of I-95. Nothing like the middle America trip I've always wanted to take. I miss traveling and I miss certain places. Pennsylvania has become my home but there's a pull from other areas, areas I've never seen and areas I always come back to, simply because I've never gone so long without seeing a new place. Perhaps that's why I have no problem just getting in my car and driving to random places in the tri-state area on the weekends - it satisfies the need to explore, the need to see something other than the same signs and the same roads and the same buildings. I like the feeling of having roots and having a place to call home but I utterly miss the anticipation of a new landscape, of different types of sounds at night, different voices, different cultures and different people.

Crowe did a wonderful job, as always, with the soundtrack. You can't have a Crowe movie without being moved by the music and without the roots of the movie being in the music. Susan Sarandon was lovely but to be truthfully honest, I could have done without the cliched young Hollywood casting of Bloom and Dunst. As the movie wove on, I imagined the moments and the lines being delivered so much better by someone like Patrick Fugit or Kate Hudson, both castings from his brilliant Almost Famous movie and both with a bit stronger pull. Bloom and Dunst, while they did what they could, just didn't have that deep connection that you needed to be utterly enthralled with the movie. To say the least, I was enthralled but utterly could be added as an adjective if the casting would've been different.

Yesterday, I wasn't feeling well so I took the day off and nursed myself back to the closest thing to wellness that I could acheive. I laid around and read completely through a book I had picked up called The Color of Light by Karen White. It wasn't the most amazing thing I have read, but it was definitely a page turner and it was a beautifully written book. At the end, I realized the real reason I had bought it was because it was set in Pawleys Island, South Carolina, close enough to where my parents live and I think part of me just wanted to be carried off for a little while to the Lowcountry because even if Pennsylvania is home, there will always be something about South Carolina that can be my escape and my refuge. As I finished the book, I remembered back to this summer when we attended a party down on Folly Beach with my family and I stood on the end of the walk from the pavilion overlooking the beach. The sun was setting and the ocean breeze was blowing and I could look over the crashing waves and look behind me and see the silhouettes of the palm trees in front of the sun that slowly setting behind the salt marshes and I just felt at peace. Maybe not completely home, but at that moment, I didn't care about anything else that was going on or anything I was dealing with. I just wanted to be in that moment, drinking my glass of wine and hearing the music from the DJ drifting over the dunes and carrying me off into a moment when nothing else mattered.

On a less serious note, I've decided that I will most likely end up buying the 30gb iPod but not at this moment. The Nano isn't feasible for me because, once I analyzed it's size in person, I realized it's not bigger than my debit card and I've lost that thing at least twice this year. Plus, bigger is always better when it comes to gadgets. I've also got my eye on a seven megapixel Sony but that's not ready yet either. My reasoning with that, rather than jump up to say a 5 megapixel then eventually to a seven, is that I might as well spend the money and get the nicest one out there that appeals to me so it will last longer rather than getting bored with it in a year when the new stuff comes out.

It's not that I don't have the money because I most certainly do but I've decided that it's time I stop being so impulsive about my financial decisions and start thinking large purchases like this over. While I really, really, really want them and most of the time, that would require me to go get them right now, I'm refraining. I've transferred that money into savings and will stave off my want for it now until perhaps after Christmas and then I will have new toys to play with.

That's about it for tonight. I just got to thinking on the way home and wanted to purge a little bit. It feels good and it's something I need to do more often. I forgot how therapeutic it was to write it all out.