A New Used Car
Even though my blood chemistry registers as "normal," I am definitely on one of my manic upswings. I don't think it is uncommon, but lately, I've been bustling with energy, crossing things off the to-do list and generally making it through the day dragging my feet less and keeping my brow turned up. After an 11-hour workday, I need to be coerced to go to bed.
In addition to being a New York City tourist, I also now enjoy being a Johnny-come-late. In other words, I like getting on a bandwagon already in full-throttle. For example, one of my new favorite passions (ala the SW public library) are Woody Allen films. All my life I made the mistake of following my mother's lead when it came to Woody Allen. She's not a fan and for some reason, I just assumed they weren't for me either. Well, I went out on a limb a few weeks ago and watched
Manhattan, still my favorite film to date, and since then have added a half-dozen titles and will continue to watch with interest until I've exhausted the collection. He inhabits the New York space I want to live in, and now that I have begun to conceive of myself as an adult with my own life and interests, his characters are like the people a I have already collected in my address book. I don't want this to slip into a sonnet about how I love thee -- but the stories, scenes, relationships, shots, the humor, the more-than-slightly pretentious but appropriate side comments, characters, cinematography, it's all a dead on match for what I am craving.
But there is something wonderful of applying the new-used car logic to life. Imagine you buy a pre-owned vehicle, when people ask if you got a "new car," you aren't lying when you say "
it's new to me." I know it's relativistic thinking to believe that something only truly exists when you grant it its existence, but forgive me from playing God just this once. So my Woody Allen obsession comes at a wonderful time when something new to me allows me a near-endless collection of movies to watch. It is like hearing and liking a band only to discover they have annals of albums already recorded and packaged and now waiting for you... or like getting into
Dawson's Creek just as TBS decides to show 4 episodes a day. It is easy to get your fix when your passions are most flared. I encourage all of you to rush right out and get yourselves a new-used car of sorts, it doesn't have to be Woody Allen movies, but find yourselves a good fit and gobble it up with two hands.
Too many eleven-hour days this week to sit down and finish any of the things I've started. I am making more time for my movies (I seem to have less choice in that matter, physically), but I owe several people emails and I promise that they are on the way, just waiting for my undivided attention to drift toward my loyal pen pals and make it count. As soon as I have the time, it's my priority. With any luck, this cold spell will settle in and bring more of these blanket-sleeping nights that make me more anxious for fall. My move is about a month away, a real month, but still a very unreal timeline of all the things that have to be done before I pack up and go. When it really comes down to it, although I'd like to get a jump on things or be more organized, it is going to be a messy rush job of just packing and unpacking and robotically finishing. Ideally, I'll take a day to weed through my closet and perhaps sort out the books long before I start filling boxes, but there simply isn't an easy way to move. We evolved past nomadism for a reason - it is so much better to be settled in a single place and move as infrequently (and as least far) as possible.
On that note, this begrudgingly nomadic girl who is saddened to digress past her natural inclinations, is taking her tired self to bed and will likely fall asleep to another Allen wonder or something by Fellini.
posted by lmjasinski at 12:11 AM
