Rude Awakenings

More changes appropriate to the new year. I don't want to make any plans right now in my life, in any capacity. I'm going to let things fall apart, so to speak. Live day by day, hour by hour. I think I'll be happier for this.

Out with the Old, In with the New

This seems to be my life perpetually. I am moving to a new apartment...again. This time in a less ghetto neighborhood where hopefully cars aren't stolen for joy rides that end up totaled in someones house. I am excited to be closer to work and things that allow for social interaction...like bars. This will be the fourth place in 3 months that I have lived. Nothing too new.

I am SO ready for 2009 to be over. Little more than a week to go. This year has been tumultuous and one of great emotional strain and doubt. I am also excited that days will be longer after the solstice so perhaps I will no longer want to off myself or sleep half of my day away.

Things are hard. Money is tight. I generally feel afraid and vulnerable these days. I have little to fall back on and there is increased pressure to lay the ground work for the rest of my life. I want to be able to give more to others. Right now, it is a struggle to just care for myself. I want to be in something secure, which I'm sure is no surprise in a situation like this. I want a relationship, career, and family life. I want a community again. It is always difficult moving to a new place. Our lives get segmented and it can be difficult to expand our social group. I hope I don't get caught in that cycle. That is what I fear.

I have been looking to mind-numbing entertainment in the form of these sites: http://perezhilton.com/ & http://imagechan.com/. I think it is winter depression, my mind cannot focus and I can't seem to get out of bed. I hope this doesn't become the norm.

There is a lot to look forward to in 2010. I will hear from the Fulbright committee and potentially be in Belgium or in graduate school within the year. Or I may not be accepted anywhere and be stuck in retail. Who knows what can happen. I sure didn't know I would be moving back here the beginning of last year!

Diary of a Call Girl

I am currently reading a book by the blogger Belle de Jour, Secret Diary of a Call Girl. I think something in me wants also to be able to participate in this lifestyle. I am also fascinated with Sasha Grey and The Girlfriend Experience by Steven Soderbergh. Women like BdJ and Sasha Grey are in control, their emotions don't get the best of them and they do not feel week. I think typically, women are sexually vulnerable. What I mean by this is that sex has greater psychological weight for women. I am not psychologically able to live this lifestyle. Sex for me is too emotional an experience.

But why am I drawn to it still? Probably because it symbolizes control over what it is to be a woman and yielding it as a powerful weapon. It is confidence and a realism that I wish I had, though I may be on a path to it. Men want sex, and that is why they are attracted to women. Women want protection, that is why they are drawn to men. I can't separate love from this transaction. I can't think of relationships as anything more than transactions. What does this say of me? I don't know. I don't know what I am trying to get at. All I can see in relationships is an end result: security.

Maybe that is superficial of me but I have had a life that has had very little of that word. I want stability and security. I want a husband, family, and career. I want it all. I want personal freedom and also responsibility to a family. I want a sexual fantasy and I want monogamy. I just want and I don't have it, whatever it is. I also want control, and that is something I will never have, to be sure.

Reading SDoaCG it amazes me how detached she is from the act. There is are no moral questions that occur in her mind, she just does it, enjoys it, and it is over. I am waiting for some sign of vulnerability, but see none yet. I still have most of the book to read. We'll see if I find it.

Faith in our Bodies

I have never been a religious person, but the subject of faith has always been of interest to me philosophically. Every society has its idol, in America I would venture to say it is money. This article in the Washington Post has some interesting views about the body and idolatry.

The body will never stop being a subject of concern for any woman. We are made painfully aware of it at least once a month and may feel like we are subject to its whims on a daily basis. But our outer appearances as well is something we are quite conscious of. Women strive for some ideal of beauty to attract a mate or even gain some exposure on a public level.

Battling with Depression

I read an interview with Lars von Trier about his recently released movie Antichrist. Another thing that has interested me in him and his film ouevre is that he is a person battling severe clinical depression and anxiety. I feel I can relate to his experience. I myself have experienced mental illness and still fight battles with it on a daily basis. Medication and therapy help to varying degrees, but a person still has to deal with the memories and cycles that his/her emotions go through. Lars von Trier made Antichrist while in the low of his depressive state. Making art while depressed is one of the most difficult endeavors. There is no energy to be had, no ability to focus, no ability to think. In this state one does not care about anything, not even oneself.

Watching the movie is like feeling that again, but it is a relief it is outside of myself. It is also a relief that deeply personal state is felt by others and put out there for others to share. Many people maybe never will or ever want to feel that way, but if you survive it, there is great lesson to be learned. I cannot say what that lesson is, but you have dug a deeper well for joy to inhabit.

The sense of control that one has over their life, if you have a mental illness, is not very palpable. Maybe that is a lesson that is better learned sooner in life than later. I believe things should not be forced because in that way they lose their genuineness. If you are living with a mental illness, you learn to wait. You don't take things for granted. This unpredictable entity that your life seems to have to sacrifice its efficiency to serves as a reminder that you are not in control. No one is.

An Education

I just read an excerpt from Lynn Barber's An Education on the Guardian website (My harsh lesson in love and life). This memoir has been adapted into a movie of the same name. I saw a trailer for it and for some reason I have been entranced with this story ever since. It is about a teenage girl who is courted by an older man, who turns out to be married and a crook. This older man was cosmopolitan and a gentleman, never encroaching on her privacy and giving her respect as a woman in exchange for no questions concerning his double life. This story is set in the 1960's, at a time when many things were taboo. He went through all the courting rituals and waited for the ripe time to take her virginity.

Minus the crook part, this is something I think I fantasized about when I was around the same age. Wanting an older and more experienced man to sweep me off my feet and take me to places I'd never been before, school me on life, and protect me. I was a girl bored generally with school, boys my age, and my crazy/uneducated family. I wanted more than that, and I still do. It doesn't help that Peter Sarsgaard (whom I have a crush on), plays the man.

I am still young and vulnerable, still looking for someone and still wanting more. In one part of the movie she says "I feel old, but not wise." That rings true for me. I know how to take care of myself and am self sufficient, but still feel jaune when it comes to love and relationships. Regardless of all the failed relationships I've been in, I still romantically fantasize of being swept of my feet. Believe me, I'm too jaded to rely on this. But I always hope to be surprised because I am still bored with everything. Maybe this will never change.

Antichrist

Last night, I watched the film Antichrist by Lars von Trier. I had heard of him but had never seen any of his films before then. Watching made me feel very content. I feel it was a film made for women, surprisingly by a man. Von Trier says, " I am an American woman. Or 65 percent of me is." http://www.signandsight.com/features/465.html

I don't know that much about Lars, but this movie has a keen sense of a woman's darkest moments, and the fury and desperation that she is capable of at her worst. I think this lives in every woman and is a quality that sets a woman apart from a man. It is a aptly named Antichrist because it a power set apart from "man", something mysterious that cannot be controlled, not by a father or divinity that Christ himself is ultimately subject too. It is a force that cannot be harnessed, predicted, or controlled. A force many men fear.

This force manifests itself in varying degrees in women, but is exemplified in its most frightening form in Antichrist. This force isn't necessarily evil as She characterizes it to be. Depending on the circumstances, in this case a dead child, this force can manifest itself in benign or malignant forms. As with rationality, which it could arguably be juxtaposed to, it is a force that can manifest into fascism, genocide, or weaponry.

Though rationality is praised and held at philosophical absolutes, this natural force is often seen as psychosis or a weakness. But in Antichrist, we get to see it reek vengeance in a most satisfying, if not for some, and shocking form.

Many critics say that von Trier is misogynistic. I disagree, I think it is a misunderstanding if not also a subversion. These criticisms are in defense of a political correctness that seeks to whitewash difference instead of embrace it. It only propagates a white male hierarchy. The person that has the power in this movie is a woman, she wields the power. I think that is a frightening thought for many.

In any case, Charlotte Gainsbourg is amazing in it and channels this force superbly. If an oscar is any indication of good acting, she deserves one.