8:36 pm - Mon 7.29.2013
A World Where Things Work Out

(Just went downstairs to do laundry...only to be thwarted by the washers all being in use, and the "culprit" told me he had three more loads after that! Which means I've found someone who's a worse procrastinator about doing his laundry than I am! But anyway...)

Am starting over after a previous draft of this entry bored the crap out of me; I'm not sure I'm going to find myself any more fascinating this time out, but I've gotta try...!

Went out on Saturday, having what I perceived to be a "date" - seeing The Way Way Back at The Landmark (Near where I work on Thursday nights).

The movie and the actual being with her was really fun - really fun (After the movie, we had Thai food and walked around the neighborhood) - but going out in LA on a weekend? What a pain-in-the-ass!
Too much traffic, too many people, too much...everything.

On Sunday, I didn't have anything planned till the evening, when I was supposed to go out for Sushi with my friend Gail (Who I know from Lansing days, and who currently lives in Palm Springs. She was in town to attend some kind of seminar near LAX).

Unfortunately, her Mother had an accident, and we had to postpone.

(It was a little tough, because I'd been alone all day, and it was the thing that was going to get me out of the house, and I was looking forward to it...but we talked on the phone for awhile as she drove back home, and that was nice.)

Today I saw The Wolverine at the Vista with Howard and Nathaniel, having coffee at Cafe Vita afterward.

The last solo "Wolverine" movie was abysmal, so I was initially leery of seeing today's movie, but I actually liked it quite a bit.

(At the cafe afterward, as part of our discussion about the movie, me and Howard had the heated discussion about Pacific Rim - I really liked it and he really didn't - that we'd actually avoided having after seeing it a couple weeks ago. Afterwards, I thought about how funny it was, having such a passionate discussion about something that, in the big scheme of things, doesn't matter at all. But anyway...)

The two movies - The Way Way Back and The Wolverine (And Pacific Rim, for that matter) - were movies I found very entertaining, while at the same time realizing neither was doing anything especially new or innovative. They just - to me, anyway - gave me what I wanted in an entertaining way (I wanted the nerdy kid to have his day, I wanted the hero to win, and in Pacific Rim, I wanted the people in giant robot suits to beat the monsters).

I do like to be challenged and stimulated, but at the same time, not every movie or tv show has to "reinvent the wheel".

One thing I thought was interesting, after seeing The Way Way Back, was talking about how we didn't really believe this or that moment in the movie "would be likely to happen in real life...but it should"

That makes me think of talking to someone about Pulp Fiction years ago, and saying "I doubt real hit men talk the way 'Jules' and 'Vincent' do in the movie, having a series of funny, quirky conversations on pulp culture...but it would be cool if they did".

I think that was the initial, primal draw of books, comics, tv, movies, etc, when I was younger - the depiction of worlds that were better/funnier/more interesting than the one I lived in - and I'm realizing now that, even though I can appreciate stories that do something else (Say, show me a world or a character or what-have-you, depicted realistically, that I'm only ever likely to experience in fiction, making me feel as if I've "expanded my consciousness"), it's still pretty appealing, from time-to-time, to just be told a story about likable people who go through something challenging, and come out winners in the end.

Cause for a time, it's nice to live in a world where things work out.

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