Life's Twisted Ways... Plus Good Books

Hmmm... interesting the way life works. Here I sit, avoiding certain people like the plague, and contemplating over the way life has been lately. Right now, I have to read through 3 books in the next three weeks for school. And I love it. This only further assists me in my plan to avoid all signs of humanity. Now I realize this may sound unhealthy, but lately I'm particularly stuck on wanting to be alone. It's funny how the people you want attention from won't give you the time of day anymore, but everyone else on the planet will. Hence my plan to just completely go into isolation for awhile. Just give me some good tunes, a few books, and lots of coffee and I'll be happy...for the most part.

Playlist includes: Elliott Smith, Counting Crows, Ryan Adams, Coldplay, Incubus, Garden State soundtrack, Beatles, Iron and Wine, a little Fuel, some Pearl Jam, maybe a few Dylan tunes...and a couple Phish songs. Oh and Led Zeppelin because I can't go anywhere without them.

Reading list is as follows: Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Emily Morse Symonds' A Writer of Books, and Lisa Carey's In The Country of Young.

Too Young to Retire?

Sometimes when I look back at old blog posts, I can't help but laugh at myself. I seriously question why I would write half the shit I do. So here I go again...

I'm 22 years old and I feel as though I'm too old to be a waitress. It's actually funny to say that considering I'm one of the youngest employees at my restaurant. But after waiting on people for a few years, it becomes exhausting. Some nights I go in wishing for it to be dead because I simply don't want to look at people nevermind wait on them.

Here's my favorite... Its always nice when I have a table with people who actually strike up a semi intellectual conversation with me. But when I respond and engage in an equally intellectual manner and they look at me with shocked expressions, I feel slightly insulted. They assume the only thing I can do is sling nachos and Budweisers to their table.

Example. With spring approaching, Mother Nautre has decided to bless us with some warm weather again. So as I discussed the weather with my table, I began to tell them about how I decided to sit outside that day and do some reading.

"Oh you like to read?" they asked with looks of astonishment. "Are you in school?"

Oh no, when I said I was reading outside, I meant I was flipping through a picture book.

Here's another good one.

When my tables think they have to tell me HOW to waitress, then I really get ticked. Honestly people, it's just waitressing. I know what to bring to the table when you order a steak and I know that a lime goes in a damn margarita. No need to further elaborate or write out instructions for me.

Then's there's the people that I swear come into just to taunt me. As I ran around the bar like a crazy woman tonight, trying to keep up with all of my straving, beer guzzling customers, I had this one duo who enjoyed keeping me at their table for at least five minutes at a time, every time I went over to them.

"Ummm, so Tiffanie.... what's in the clam chowder?"

Or...

"Oh Tiffanie, I think I need another drink. [as their martini glass is full in front of them] "What do you think I should have?" Now keep in mind that every one of my tables are full and this man has been watching me run around incessantly trying to keep up with them.

As I stare at his full drink, fighting back rude remarks, I simply count backwards from ten in my head and wait until my anger monkies subside before I open my mouth. Then he begins to spew out random drinks before finally noticing his glass and replying, "Oh wait! I don't need a drink. This one is still full."

Really, dude?

In the mean time, my other seven tables are angrily staring me down as I have now neglected them while I sat [actually stood] and wasted my time while this man simply wasted oxygen by opening his mouth for no reason... as usual.

OK, I'm done. I feel slightly better. I could probably write a book on all of the ups and downs of a restaurant, but I'd rather not.

Until then... come see me at work!

"You gotta hear this one song. It'll change your life, I swear."

I think The Awakening may have changed my life. That, and Garden State. What an amazing film. Lately, life is so entirely complicated and unpredictable; I've been realizing that I can't simply stay stuck. There's no point in settling if you're truly unhappy.

As I feverously flipped through the pages of The Awakening, I couldn't help but feel connected to Edna--the protagonist of Kate Chopin's novel. When a book does that to me, I can't help but see it to be a sign. And lately, I cannot ignore "the signs." But what happens when you misread the signs? I feel as though I may have been reading between the lines a bit too much lately with my personal life and other such people in it. Yet when reading Chopin's book, I can't help but think to myself that these so called signs are real. Then again, (***spoiler alert** do not read on if you plan to read The Awakening!) poor Edna kills herself at the end when things don't go her way with the dashing Robert! Needless to say, I slammed that book shut with such disappointment that I felt the need to toss it into the Merrimack River.

But what does this tell me? Yes, Edna gained immense independence from her "awakening." She learned to go after what truly made her happy. She learned to finally love. But in the same breath, she wasn't entirely independent. She still craved that sense of companionship and intimacy. And she still felt incomplete without Robert. Um...ew. No woman should feel incomplete when without a man. But as human beings, we can't help but crave that kind of companionship.

I suppose you could say that Garden State is quite the opposite of The Awakening. Here, Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff) is living his life independently--to the extent of it being unhealthy since he has completely shut off from everyone else. Then the charming and free-spirited Sam (Natalie Portman) comes along and snaps him out of his emo-like, lithium induced trance. It's not your average, cliche flick. There's a subliminal message there that is hard to ignore. OK, well maybe it's not so subliminal then. Life must be indulged in wholeheartedly. If we don't allow ourselves to feel the good and the bad, we simply go numb. And if we're numb, how will be able to experience life and all it's potential?

...oh and the Garden State soundtrack is amazing.

Shut up, Jane Austen.

I was a fan of Pride and Prejudice. I even liked the first half of Persuasion. But the more I read an Austen novel, the more I see how trivial these people's lifestyles really were. Did you really have nothing better to do than to gossip, attempt love matches, and argue over who had a better pearl necklace? It's sickening to think of how these people lived. Then I look at how we live today, barely making time to breathe, constantly on the go, with little time to indulge in leisure. Well, that's just as vile quite frankly.

People need to make time to enjoy the finer things in life. And by finer, I don't mean pearl necklaces and expensive getaways to Bath, England. I mean indulging in your own country's beauty as John Muir would strongly advocate for. Exploring your own country, hiking a mountain, driving the Pacific Coast, swimming in the Great Lakes, or simply taking a walk through your neighborhood, taking in the beauty of the environment around you. Picking up a good book, just to read for your own sake. Going out to eat at a restaurant you would normally never go to--experiencing new tastes. Discovering new music, finding a new favorite band, going to concerts, experiencing the mind altering state of live music.

No matter what the reason or excuse, people should find time to sit back and breathe. Life is far too short to run through it holding your breath, trying to get to that class or meeting on time while you eat your lunch that you just picked up through the drive thru window while breaking up with your boyfriend on his voicemail because you felt as though you no longer had time for a relationship anymore.

After diving into some life changing experiences recently, I have also realized this about life. As I sit here, overwhelmed with school work, I've come to the conclusion, that there is no point to stress about it. It will get done when it does. At this very moment, I'm doing something that I want to be doing. Without that sense of relief and enjoyment in life, what is the point of it?

Perhaps that is what Jane Austen was attempting to get across in her novels. Simply indulging in meaningless activities is apart of life. Though I know I would not enjoy much of her snobbish activities, I do agree with the overall concept of them. You need that extra time to simply take a long walk along the beach for no reason whatsoever besides that you simply wanted to. Although I am not condoning Austen's obsession with social classes, marriage, and gossiping, snobby women, I do like the cynical tone in her novels, giving them that extra flare of life and bold opinion.

Movies, Films, and Crappy Writers...Oh My!

I'm not sure how I feel about this. As much as I love seeing new movies, I am beginning to wonder if film writers have lost their spunk. Every book I plan to read, am reading, or have read is being made into film. Really...it's beginning to take away from the authenticity of books.

"Ew, I don't read. I just watch the movie," says another, deluded aquaintance of mine.

One of these days, I'd like to be able to scream in their face..."HA! It's not a movie. Go open a book for once, you slacker."

Unfortunately, it's as if every movie coming out lately was once a book. Let them make On the Road or Walden into a movie. I'll start a war...mark my words, I will. Though, sadly, I hear they are in the making to put Kerouac's masterpiece onto the big screen. Oh, boy.

People truly don't know what their missing out on. You get so much more out of reading a book than watching the movie. It's more personal, imaginative, and overall mind altering. It expands your mind into places where a movie could never take you. When you're watching the movie, you're forced to see things as to how the director and producers imagined. With a book, you have the control. You can imagine things exactly the way your mind wants. I cannot begin to explain how many times I've seen a movie after reading the book and felt completely heart broken because it wasn't made the way I had envisioned the story.

But in the end, the media will not stop. They will continue to steal books, putting them into cinemas, while crushing readers vivd pictures of their treasured tales. It's simply fate. Digging more into this tragic fate, I recently discovered they've transformed Eat, Pray, Love into a movie--starring Julia Roberts. It's due out in August. Woo.

Dusting Off...

As I browse through graduate schools, tossing the ideas of road trips, writers' workshops, and the University of Vermont through my head, I decide to sign back on to my good ole' blog. Once, an assignment for a class, and now an escape from the terrifying reality that I will be faced with a mere five months from now: I will be graduating college. Where the hell am I going? Still, I have not changed. I am constantly engrossed in novels, many times more than one at a time, and I always ponder ways I could make a career out of reading books. A geek's fantasy, I know. I've come to that sad conclusion. They are also wonderful escapes from reality, and in some cases provide some inspirational wisdom and motivation.

For example, I've recently begun to read, Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. "Don't you see?! It's fate!" I screamed to my mother as I explained the coincidental connection of my sudden epiphany to travel and discover myself to the suggestion of this book that she recently threw at me. The book seems to literally be written for me. OK, not literally, but it certainly feels as though Gilbert is actually reaching out to me and pushing me to finally take that road trip that I've always wanted to do. Or--just another tip to fate--the trip to Europe my childhood friend has also suddenly invited me on. She, just as lost as myself, is eager and hungry to travel.

As I scratch another book off my reading list, I decide to start making a list of places to travel. And just as I plan to finish my reading list, I intend to whole heartedly indulge in some serious travel in the near future. What the hell, right?...I'm 22 years old, about to graduate from college, and seriously behind in grad school applications. Perhaps I need this change of pace first. I need to see more of this crazy world.