i babble about people i’ve never met

Sunday night, watching the X-Files:

[scripty]
PAMIE
Oh, they are doing those long shot things.

ERIC
That’s pretty cool.

CHUY
Well, it’s not Scorsese or anything.

CHRIS
Hitchcock.

CHUY
Scorsese is known for doing these long pans.

CHRIS
Hitchcock.

CHUY
Scorsese.

PAMIE
Chuy, the film is called Rope.

CHUY
But Scorsese is known for it.

PAMIE
But Hitchcock started it.

CHUY
Just because someone originates something, that doesn’t mean that that’s what they are known for.

PAMIE
Yes it does.

CHUY
No it doesn’t. You’re telling me that Scorsese isn’t known for long continual shots?

PAMIE
Scorsese may do it well, but the credit goes to Hitchcock.

CHUY
Alright!

PAMIE
Chuy, Hitchcock started it!

CHUY
Whatever.

PAMIE
Whatever you.
[/scripty]

Movie arguments never end with a resolution around here. Don’t expect one.

[db]

Sometimes my evenings are pretty normal.

Like last night.

Worked out, went to the store, cooked dinner, and watched a movie.

Now what’s funny about that?

I don’t know.

Well, I know one thing about the store: I am the perfect shopper. I can impulse buy like no one you’ve ever seen. Yesterday before I ever put something I needed into my cart I already had $40 worth of items. I forced myself to put some back, which I normally don’t do, but it is the holidays coming up.

There are some Sesame Street ornaments that I really, truly must have.

I think that now I want to say something about Kim and Wil. It’s past a week now, and it’s still something on my mind. Can you believe it? It’s on my mind. Last Monday when I was going to bed I was telling Eric about it. I don’t even know these people, I’ve never met these people, but I just have this empathy for them. I don’t watch soap operas. I rarely get into a serial television show with that drooling excitement. I don’t know what’s going on with Scully or Mulder or Green or Weaver or Dawson or Joey or Brenda or Kelly or even Ross and Rachel. I’m never home often enough to get involved. But since I read these journals every day, I felt something when Kim left. I’m amazed by it. I was sort of depressed about it Monday night.

“Why are you so upset about it?” Eric asked me.

“Because it seems no one tries to keep relationships going anymore. They just give up on them and move on, you know? That’s why divorce rates are so high. We just want our own satisfaction right now, and if you are standing in my way, then ‘fuck you’, you know?”

“I think what she did was terribly romantic,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, she gave up everything to be with this guy who she’s known all this time that she cared about and once he said something to her she left everything for him? That’s pretty romantic.”

“But she hurt all these people. She’s just rushing into things.”

“You don’t even know her.”

“I know! That’s what’s so stupid about all this. That I can’t sleep because I wonder what’s happening in Seattle. How obsessive/freaky/stalky is that?”

“I just think she probably did the right thing.”

And then I thought: because it’s what I did for him. I ended a relationship that wasn’t working when I knew that he liked me. Days later we were together. I ended a rather long-term relationship because I knew that he was interested in me and I was interested in him and I didn’t have to… I don’t know.

And then part of it wasn’t about him at all. Actually, a lot of it wasn’t about him at all. I wanted to break up with that boyfriend. I was ready to go. Eric made it easier for me, I guess. When we started dating, we were just going to be casually dating. All of my friends told me that I was rushing into things, I wasn’t thinking straight, I wasn’t giving myself enough time to heal…

and then I realized that we are treating another one of my friends the same way. She’s going through a divorce, and she’s found someone that she likes and everyone’s giving her a hard time about it. I was talking to her during the engagement party the other day and it all clicked. She may have found her Eric. And I have absolutely no business trying to talk her out of that. She understood why everyone was warning her, just as I understood back then why everyone was telling me to be alone. People care about you and they relate what you are going through to what they went through and they know what worked for them and they want that to work for you.

So, Kim probably is doing the right thing. But who the hell am I to have an opinion about it?

Then I watched Husbands and Wives last night, which seemed to make things even worse. Relationships never work out in Woody Allen movies, and it always bums me out. Annie Hall? Oh, God, just kill me, you know? Relationships ending just breaks my heart. People put all of that time into something… they spent such quiet, intimate moments together, and it just gets reduced to name calling and hair pulling and ice cream eating and memories…

But that’s only when you left a real love. That stuff doesn’t happen when you just end a relationship that just didn’t work. But if there was love there… that shit breaks your heart over and over and over.

But we do what we think is best for ourselves.. even if it is at the expense of others. We have to take care of ourselves. I just wish that people looked out for each other like they look out for themselves. I wish that relationships were made more off of teamwork and not individual dreams and wishes. If only people really considered themselves partners. That has been when I’ve seen the strongest relationships. If the commitment is there to stick together through bad times and boring times and poor times…

But then I’ve gone ahead and given up on a relationship before.

I’m just rather insecure about being lonely, you know? I guess everyone is… that’s what the movie was all about. That people stay with people they don’t even really love because they are afraid of being lonely.

So then my theory is completely blown, because I don’t want people to stay together when they aren’t happy.

Oh, forget it. I’m just amazed that I care about this subject when it involves two people that I’ve never met: one that I read about every few days, and another that I’ve never read about until this whole thing started.

But to those of you who think it’s all a big sham… that’s terrible, man. Why would anyone want to do that?

Am I just tricking myself?