On the Verge of Christmas Eve

Two blogys in a day! Shortly after I wrote my last blog post roughly ten hours ago, I came down with one of those massive migraine headaches that I get every so often and every last good intention I had of going out into the world and socializing was put on indefinite hold. Mostly I feel bad about not getting around to my brother’s house and visiting him yet. He was in a construction accident at work and crushed his heel, resulting in a big surgery he had on Friday. I will visit tomorrow…and I’m not sure if he reads this, but …. love you brother, I’ll see you soon!

So with the headache I made my way out to my car for my bottle of Advil and an unopened pack of buy one get one free Camel No. 9 Menthols (because a cigarette always helps, right?) and after smoking, went back in to get some water and lay in a cool dark room. On my way to my room, I scanned our newly-acquired El Salvadorian roommate’s collection of dvd’s, and decided to pick one to have on in the background while I tried to sleep. I usually can’t sleep through migraines but I try, and it’s nice to have something on the tv besides yet another horribly unfunny episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. The movie I picked was Requiem for A Dream. I have never seen it before, but it has been recommended to me as “amazing” and “kind of fucked up” for the last ten years or so, and I decided to pop it in having no idea at all what it was about. Now, if you’ve seen this movie you’ll understand why I say this now: I was already in a very dark, depressing mood most of the week, as I generally get when I’m bored and unmotivated. It’s not depression or anything, it’s just those moments of sober thinking when everything means nothing but you plow ahead because that’s what you should do and the crossroads and decisions and relationships and life leave you with a pick of less of the two evils (was that a mini-rant?). So I put this movie in, knowing it was a bit fucked up, but hey, I loved Momento, Lord of War, Fear and Loathing, Battle Royale, et cetera. So cool.

Let me just say: fuck. Sorry for my lack of eloquence here, but fuck. I watched the whole movie, alone in my dark room, and actually sat there just staring at the screen, in my bed, for a good ten minutes after the credits were over. Fuck. An amazing movie? Maybe. But damn – I don’t know if it was a combination of the movie and my personal life experiences or just the movie itself, but I (and having seen some pretty hardcore films, so much so that I did *not* list them above just now) have NEVER been that personally thrown, kicked in the ass, hurt, depressed, shocked, numbed, or just (again pardon the expression) mindfucked by a film in my life. I’m sure alot of it was personal; I’m sure some people who have had more normal lives could watch it and not think anything of it, but not me. Never watch this film alone, especially in the state of mind like I was in.

My migraine had gone someplace – somewhere else – and I left my room and went to the living room and sat there in front of the blank tv, feeling extremely hopeless yet feeling like I needed to hug a Care Bear at the same time. I felt like I needed to take something in or experience something almost Disneyesque to get my mind back in order. After awhile, our new roommate Juan came home, and I told him I watched that film. I didn’t say how I felt, just that I watched it.

“Oh dude, alone? Fuck.”

He decided it was best to get me out of the house and from there we went to dinner at a dim sum joint neat Mesa Community College, and I have to say – some of the best Egg Foo Young of my life did a good job at slightly cheering me up. From there we went out to Borders where I picked up a couple books, and then back home.

And as soon as I was back, I put that movie away. Far away. I am not kidding you – I have “Cinderella” out to watch tonight. Okay, maybe “I, Robot,” but still.