I have been incredibly depressed.
To put as blasé a spin on it as I can, since that seems the most apt
tone for a blog no one reads, I’ll just say I’m going through a 1/3 life crisis
(and/or I am between effective anti-depressants).
Accordingly, I have been treating
myself with kid gloves, which primarily entails letting myself go balls-out in
indulging my constant need for entertainment, even though this indulgence is inconvenient
for a fulltime worker, attentive mother, and sometimes mean but always well-meaning
wife like me. Yet, I’ve somehow managed
to squeeze in many, many plotlines these days.
When I get a spare moment at work, since I take my lunch at my desk, I
have been reading the novel David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, which
I downloaded from the free ebooks (for classics) website Project Gutenberg. This is
really a great book. I usually gravitate
towards contemporary fiction, but since I discovered the Project Gutenberg
site, I have gotten myself to read several classics, and it’s been comforting
to step outside of time. David
Copperfield has a worthily famous opening; the first chapter is called “I
Am Born” and starts:
Whether I shall turn
out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by
anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my
life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a
Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike,
and I began to cry, simultaneously.
How great to start at
the BEGINNING like that.
For further proof that I have been
keeping myself heavily distracted, here is the list of DVD’s I have watched in
the past week:
Brave (2012)
Bored to Death Season 3 Disc 1 (2011)
Mad Men Season 5 Disc 4 (2012)
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Season 7 Discs 1 & 2 (2011)
Ted (2012)
Ted and Brave are completely
disposable, and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is hard to write about,
because part of me doesn’t approve of this show. Its sense of humor is very ugly and
mean. However, somehow the creators are
able to convey the fact that they are not mean or spiritually ugly themselves, and though any snob
could rightly call this show asinine, I think it’s so funny. It has cute little absurdities in it, too, like my
favorite character Charlie lie-bragging that he’s an expert in “bird law.” People from my birthplace and current home of
Los Angeles have asked me if people are really that bad in Philly, where I lived
for 2 years, and I have to break it to them that nope … they are WORSE. I have never let my bitch flag fly as much as
in Philly, because I had so many unpleasant encounters there that I couldn’t
even begin to spin to myself as an “oh well, I’ll never see this person again,
best just to pick my battles and walk away from this one”-type pep talk. One time in a Dick’s Sporting Goods (aptly
named) I was treated so rudely that I made it to the cash register before
creating a scene that started “This store is BULLSHIT!” Oh boy did I exorcise a lot of swears in that
fucking shit-hole of a city. I am more
direct since living there though, and I think that’s an asset. There is a lot of hemming and hawing in
California, and I try to cut to the chase more now. Anyway, I watched both discs of season 7 in a
row on a day when I was too depressed and with too strong of a migraine to go
to work, and it sort of cured what ailed me, so I give it a good review.
Bored to Death is a great show. The concept of bromance is sort of played
out, but when it’s examined in this show, it is still totally “aw…that’s so
sweet”-inducing. There is one scene
where the 3 main characters, a young-ish unsuccessful-ish writer, his best
friend and their older mentor/father figure, are all sharing a king size bed in
matching pajamas, it’s a little slumber party, and it looks so nice, I bet there
are a ton of men who wish they had a couple close friends like that that they
could just truly be taken care of by and unravel with for a night – what a nice
break that’d be from everyday life. It also
made me feel envious and wish I had a couple good friends I could be that
comfortable around. In general I think
it’s harder for men to share their feelings and get close to other men, and I feel
sorry for them for that, but I also think it’s just a bad side effect of being a
grown up of either gender -- it gets hard to make friends. It’s true
that I’m able to be much more open about my feelings than most men I know, sort of
without batting an eyelash, but that ability doesn’t necessarily lead to
friendship. Anyway, Bored to Death is a
great show and you should all watch it.
It’s so funny and smart and its quirkiness isn’t obnoxious.
Now I come to one of the best things I
have seen in a long time, and that is disc 4 of season 5 of Mad Men. HOLY SHIT.
Matthew Weiner really outdid himself this time. It’s funny because Disc 3 isn’t currently
available from Netflix so we have skipped several episodes of this season,
since we went straight from Disc 2 to Disc 4, but even with that hiccup, I was
wholly engrossed in every episode, and I really can’t describe how well done
these episodes are, and really haunting.
I wonder what Weiner’s influences are (not aesthetically ---- everyone
knows the show has a great Danish Modern etc aesthetic, but that’s beside the
point), but creatively. Episode 12, “Commissions
and Fees” has a plotline with Sally Draper that feels very
Salinger-inspired.
xoxo robin
