Media Watch

THEN I REMEMBERED

Alaina got it! The device of 'The Four Way Path' is cribbed from the movie 'Chasing Amy', where the cat played by Jason Lee illustrates the predicament of his friend, played by Ben Affleck.

Not going to detail it, other than to say it is a fine Kevin Smith movie. You may not like him, but from 'Clerks' to 'Dogma', to 'Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back', he has earned my time at the Octoplex.

But for the most part, Alaina understands what I was trying to say. The real one, the one most likely to 'utilize' (since he has bought his smoke on credit, and have already spent the money) is the cat going down path #4. Why? Because the other three, are figments of the imagination!!

Santa, the Easter Bunny, hate to break it to you, don't exist. First of all, there is NO WHITE CAT brave enough to wander the North End in the middle of the night without back up and a badge. If an Easter Bunny was hoppin' around, I am sure that if the traffic didn't get him, someone would catch him and use him as 'bait' for their pit bulls that they fight illegally.

I will get with 'Mr. Probable and Likely' (as in the probable and likely boyfriend of a friend or relative that you wish he wasn't!!) a little later., in another entry.

BARNEY STILLSON

Yesterday was a 'un-synced' day for me. Grr. But I did get to watch two shows, '24' and '... Mother', which I really wanted to see.

Barney Stillson was set to reach a special milestone in his 'career' ... hooking up with 200 women in his lifetime. His friends, acting as the moral guide to the show, worked to diminished his achievement. The scramble that he did to try to make it a special moment wasn't really that funny. But his story wasn't why I was interested.

I could have been 'that cat' ... but I decided in the middle of my career to pull off that road. The difference for me was a coming to terms with myself. I didn't understand why I felt so conflicted about how my 'love life' was ... and I think it began with that term, because that was how I defined it. A love life. Not any other term, so that meant what I was searching for and trying to feel was, 'love'.

Remembering that I tried to be married in my early 20's, I finally got it in my early 30's, that I wasn't trying to 'score' for the sake of scoring. It wasn't that I lacked 'opportunities', but I would only mobilize for a specific target, one that I 'felt' and not simply lusted for. Realizing that, changed my approaches, and it would eventually evolve to the approach that I used with Tee Jay, and is the primary in how I will approach whoever comes next.

Sort of like the epiphany Frank Falenczyk, the alcoholic hit man in the movie, 'You Kill Me', played by Ben Kingsley (whoa ... Gandhi as a hit man?? And an extremely convincing one as well!!) who falls for Tea Leoni's character.

There is conversation between them that is very relevant to me, and how I imagine things to be for me. Frank is honest with her from the start about 'some' of his baggage. When he realizes not how much she likes him (or as for that, maybe he does ... he picks her up at ... I will let readers find that out for themselves), but how much he likes her, he has what I call, 'the big reveal', where he bares himself 'hearts lying open' to her, inviting her to his untidy life.

There are some ups and downs, but in the end, they end up together. It also has the 'there's no crying in baseball (or boxing)' element to it as well. That is what makes their love so true.

If that is how it comes to me, and I have always thought that it very well might, that is the love that I will take. Not because it is what is left, but because it is what will last. Frank and Laurel has a tested love, one that is strong from the experiences of both parties, and the conscious choice to accept and be vunerable to someone, risking to get to a greater shared life.

DYING FOR EACH OTHER

Do people really understand what that means? One of the things I KNOW is that I understand in a clear cut fashion what it means to offer myself up in this way. I do think that it is a real component to what I will find in that relationship, the one that I am looking for.

Frank and Laurel, 'died' for each other. Both people were far from their comfort zone, from where they normally operate and live from. But when they did, they found each other. They risked it all, everything that they knew to experience something they never had. That is what happens, when you make the choice to commit to something or to someone. You get so, so, much more back.

In a discussion with the use of the word 'swag' with Nebraska (I decided to let that go), I could only hint at the facade it creates for people, which is why I didn't like it. If you really have it, you don't need to claim it. If I have to tell someone that 'I am getting my swag on', then I must not have 'swag' to begin with.

In relationships, I wonder when I hear people talk about how much they 'sacrificed' to be with someone ... and 'how that works for them'. This is where I will begin from, when I delve into #4, the 'real' character who has bought his weed on credit, because he knows that the other three going for the money are just apparitions from his buzz! Daddy got to have that loot!!