CONVERSATION IN CAR

 

KYLE: Do you think she’s in Heaven?

MARK: What? You mean Jenny?

KYLE: Yes.

MARK: No. No fuckin’ way. Not her.

KYLE: Mark, how can you-

MARK: First off, she was the biggest goddamn slut in the entire state. She fuckin’ spread her legs for any prick or dick lookin’ to get wet. God, from my understanding, doesn’t look so good on those that are sluts.

KYLE: She was your girlfriend Mark. You love her. Why are you talking like that?

MARK: Don’t be such a faggot. I’m just speaking the truth. And most often, I’ve found, the truth bites balls.

MARK: Besides, I don’t believe in Heaven anyway. You can’t be in a place that doesn’t exist.

KYLE: (silence)

MARK: Look Kyle, that’s where most people go wrong. They get so pent up and full of these stupid emotions and ideas while wasting time trying to figure out just what it all means. We try to make sense of something, like what happened to Jenny, and say shit like: “Oh it’s God’s plan” and “it was His time for her” and other bullshit. Here is the truth: There is no fucking God. No pearly, gold street Heaven, no burning Hell. There’s here and now. There’s this life and that’s all there is. Sometimes things just happen because they just. fucking. happen. No mystical, spiritual shit. Just life. And the sooner everyone opens their eyes and accepts this truth…, well, the more fucking honest we can be with one another.

KYLE: Says the guy with the cameras following him around. Says the guy with the scripts and the careful editing of his “so-called life”.

MARK: Hey, that’s different.

KYLE: Yeah, how so?

MARK: I’ve accepted the truth. I acknowledge that there’s no higher power or greater purpose to life than whatever fuckin’ pretty, cutesy label we decide to slap on it. There’s no rule that says I can’t use everyone else and their ignorance to make my life better.

KYLE: That’s pretty sad, you know? I like to think that there is something else out there, someone else out there. Or, at least some place we go after we die. To make up for all the horrible things that happen to us here. I like to think that somewhere out there, in space or Heaven or…wherever, Jenny is happy and living better than she did here.

MARK: Jenny’s dead. Gone. Nothing more. What’s really sad about all this, is that I never knew you were such a fuckin’ sheep.

KYLE: Yeah. That’s me. A sheep. Bah, bah, bah.

MARK: I feel sorry for you dude. Life is gonna chew you up, boil you down, chomp on your bones and shit you out in a puddle of crap. You better wizen up to the truth as I see it. Things will go better for you. Trust me. You might even get to cash in on it.

On Writing

Earlier I had written about this time when my best friend and I decided to try and co-write a screenplay. The screenplay never came to fruition, but the idea behind it has never been far from my thoughts. As a matter of fact, the ideas had been planted before the two of us had even discussed writing something together.

I have a hard time expressing myself and the things I feel in person. I find that there is some sort of disconnect between my brain, heart and tongue that trips up the things I’d like to say or do. The things that go on in my head seem to run so much smoother than the course of action I ultimately take. This is one of the reasons why I love to write. I might not be all that great at it (no formal “training” or “instruction” outside of the high school education), but it’s something I have to do. Otherwise, all these…things inside of me will just fester until I explode. Yes, I can be dramatic.

Like everyone else, there is a lot of history that comes behind everything I do. There are events that happened that have, for better or worse, shaped and molded me into the person I am today. Like everyone else, I have issues with my parents. Issues with letting go of past events. Issues with former loves. Issues with the law. Issues with work. Issues with myself. I know I am not unique in this journey and that the feelings I have felt are not mine alone to feel. None of this is extraordinary.

Before all others came Caleb Kennedy. He was born from the quiet talks between Teenage Corey and Teenage Katie in a Barnes & Noble on 83rd and Bell Road. He was, like me back then, a high school student whose views of the world were heavily shaped and influenced by his parents and life at home. He was an unflinching conservative who pushed his views in every conversation, regardless if such a topic even warranted it. He had a quiet, shy charm that most girls were secretly drawn to, but chose the more handsome, better built, more athletic and louder boys. Caleb, like me, was thin and plain, and aside from the fiery passion of politics, news, books and video games, was completely unremarkable. He was untouched and intact from the realities that lie outside of the small high school world. He was me, back when I was young.

When Teenage Corey and Teenage Katie decided they couldn’t work on that project together, Caleb Kennedy faded into the recesses of Teenage Corey’s mind, waiting patiently for a chance to be let out again. He would incubate for 2 years. In that two-year span he would grow and change in ways he could not have possibly foreseen. And when, on that cool winter’s day in 2006 when two best friends were mulling over a screenplay, Caleb was once again let loose.

Only now he was Caleb Archer. A high school graduate who was coming to terms with all the new things about himself. He was no longer a fierce conservative, unquestioning of the ways of his world and of his God. Once removed from the comforts of home and the securities of all that was familiar, he grew to question everything, and accept dormant feelings that had been rising within him since adolescence. He met new people, made new friends and even found love in the arms of another man. And his entire world was flipped upside down. Everything he had known was thrown away. And in the confrontation with his family, his core security, chaos was further sewn.

But then, like his previous incarnation, Caleb Archer was locked back into the recesses of Post-High School Corey’s mind. Unlike Kennedy, Archer was not content to just sit and wait. He would constantly scream and shout about needing to be let out and given life. He would not lie down and accept incubation. Caleb Archer demanded life. He would parade all that had happened to shape his existence in Corey’s mind, constantly reminding him of all the good and the bad that had happened. Such a thing made it hard to move on from what came before.

For four years Caleb Archer whined and pouted. And in those four years, Post-High School Corey became Adult Corey and had his life shaped even further by events within and outside of his control. Caleb Archer felt the changes and became something else too.

He became Kyle Fog, the latest and most current version of the person that carries all the weight and emotions that have made Adult Corey into what he is today.

The evolution of that one character also speaks to the evolution of the story I’ve been trying to tell since high school. I had forgotten, until I started writing this that I had tried to write a story with an old friend of mine, Katie, back in the day. This story has been haunting me for so long and all I’ve been able to successfully do is write about writing the fucking story.

Working titles had been things like “Where The Falls Begin”; “The Whereabouts of Happiness”; “Haze”; “Not An Exit”; “Up, Down and Somewhere In the Middle”. Shit. All of it. The screenplay never had a working title. A while back I had thought that maybe the reason I couldn’t express any of what had happened up until now was because the story just wasn’t meant to be told. That the feelings I have inside of me are meant to just stay inside of me and never be properly expressed because I just can’t.

And then I finished Less Than Zero and The Rules of Attraction and Lunar Park and thought to myself: Why limit the story to the realm of what happened to me and what it made me feel? Why not explore deeper connections and the consequences of all things- action and inaction? Why not do what your betters have done, Corey, and write about society as you see it today?

After all, when I was younger I was a firebrand for politics and hot-button topics. I’m still very much a political spirit, but I have tempered into that a more moral-pseudo spiritual, philosophical aspect that had been previously lacking in my belief structure. Not only that, but the world is ripe right now for being picked apart. Almost everything about popular society is shallow and superficial. It’s something even knowing doesn’t help one escape from.

Enter “The Killers”. An idea that has been gestating for the past 8 years somewhere inside of me. On the outside, the narrative is plain and straight-forward. A pretty teenage girl disappears after an altercation with her vain boyfriend. From there it weaves backward and forward in time, tracing the lives of the boys and girls who were so closely entwined in her life and the impact such a sudden loss has on each of them. The narrative is loosely based on songs from The Killer’s 2004 debut album “Hot Fuss”. I know that there isn’t really supposed to be any sort of narrative to that album as a whole, but when I thread the tracks together with the idea of the story and who the characters are, it sort of does tell a tale.

What was Caleb K and Caleb A became Kyle Fog, who in turn gave some of his likeness to the other main characters in the story: Jenny, Natalie, Andy and Mark. Each of them has become a reflection of certain traits and ideas that make up who I am. Each with their own faults and insecurities; desires and dreams.

I’m not worried if the plot is flimsy. Back when I was younger, that was all I cared about. When I would write fanfiction, I would produce these grandiose, multi-layer plots that eventually turned into this gigantic monster that could not be controlled. And the characters were lost in all of it. Lately, with this latest incarnation of who I am, characterization and growth are what I am about. Exploring people and why they do what they do. Why they feel what they feel. The basic plot is just a means to explore these emotions and feelings that I have inside of me.

That’s ultimately what all of this boils down to: expressing feeling. Exploring things I cannot otherwise quantify or subject another person to in conversation. One cannot simply look at me and see and know all there is. One cannot read a singular blog entry and know who I am. One cannot pour over pictures and songs and know all that I am. It is my hope that, somewhere in this novel, I can put to rest certain aspects of that which has made me who I am today.

I live to write and I write to live. It’s a delicate system that has lately been set upon by the demands of “the real world” and not the one I’d like to fall into. I hope I can turn whatever focus I have on this project and finish it. Even if it does not get published, I’ll still post it online for anyone with an interest to read.

For me, it isn’t about the money or becoming famous. Though money does ease the movements one makes in this world, I write this story for myself and to anyone else who may have felt what I have felt. For anyone who may have experienced the things that I have experienced in this brief life.

I try to remind myself of these things every day. If what I write offends or depresses or excites or elates, then I have done what I needed to do.

Career Day

A song came on Pandora while I was driving into work this morning. “Career Day” by the Format. It took me back a couple years to when I was working at Safeguard with my best friend, Ryan. I remember we were outside the main building, around the back, smoking cigarettes and tossing back ideas, as we used to do when we were younger.

We both liked to write. Well, I loved (still do) it and I think he thought of it as something to do to pass the idle times that find us here and there. Back in high school we had both tried collaborating on a writing project. Some fantasy drivel about warring kingdoms and a religiously persecuted people. A dramatic tale of brother’s separated at birth and destined to face one another in combat. Terribly cliché, I know, but it was fun stuff. It was fun to sit around and talk about what our characters would do and say, their actions limited only on the imaginations of teenage boys who played too many video games, watched too many cartoons and read too many books. Boys, who had, back in grade school, ran around the playground battling dragons and zombies and plotting the ways one could assail the chain-link fence to escape the dreary prison that was the school.

Somewhere along the way the co-written piece dropped out of the making. I attribute it to the fact that he unexpectedly moved away to New Mexico and left me in Arizona to work on in myself. Which, I found, I could not do because, despite knowing him so well, couldn’t plot out everything that was happening on his side as he would have wanted it. So it was abandoned and time took to it and covered in a blanket of dust. We both moved past it and that was the end of that. Until that day.

While we were trading stories and ideas and general randomness, I asked if he might like to try and collaborate on a project. No, not some fantasy flub of our youth, but a more dramatic, serious piece of writing. . A screenplay. Neither of us had ever written anything in such a format before. Where would we even begin? How does one go about writing it? It’s a mostly dialogue sort of thing, isn’t it? We batted these questions around to one another, both our minds starting to open and take in everything that we could possibly write about.

We were no longer in high school, 3 years removed from it in fact, and both had come to experience very different things since then. My idea, my drive for writing this screenplay, had been to express those experiences and feelings. When you’re in high school, you’re exposed to a very limited “Life Factor”. That is, while you’re given a little leeway to do things how you want, much of what goes on is very scripted and organized. Your day operates on a schedule and, aside from an upcoming test or college admissions (if that’s your bag); you didn’t have much to worry about. Worries tended to revolve around one’s social standing, which truly amounts up to nothing once you’re handed a piece of paper and toss an overpriced, cheap cap into the air. And even then, the change isn’t quite immediate. It’s what I call a “slow burn”.

From 2004 to 2006 (the tail end of which is when this conversation took place), I had gone through some pretty defining moments, or moments that seemed to be defining compared to anything else I’d gone through. He had his own fair share of the Life Factor to relate. And there it was. An untitled project formed. We were going to take three characters and follow the course of their lives, starting with the tail-end of high school and ending…well, we never really talked about and ending. We both agreed that we would just stop at a point when the characters had sufficiently expressed what it was we were both trying to express. I wanted to make sure that it didn’t end, end. It would have no real, concrete resolution because I had come to believe, back then, that so much didn’t truly end nor have a resolution. Especially when it came to relationships with people. Life is not final until you’ve drawn your last breath. That was what I wanted to wrap around everything we were going to write about.

Since we were writing a screenplay, we also thought it would be a good idea to try and tie in songs to certain scenes that we’d already envisioned in our brains. Enter “Career Day”. We both thought it would be the perfect way to introduce the three main characters and show their morning routine, which, naturally, spoke of their personalities. There was a character based on me, based on him and one loosely based on our friend Rob, who was, out of all of us, the most unfocused and lackadaisical, and also the one who stuck with college.
We had the conflict of the three main characters loosely threaded. My character would be the one who tried hard to please the desires of his overly religious, conservative family, all the while coming to terms with how all of that conflicts with everything he is. It was to ultimately culminate in an explosive confrontation with his parents, who disown him and he is left alone. Ryan’s character would come from an already broken home, parents who care next to thing and he would find solace in a mentally unbalanced girl whom he ultimately impregnates and then has to put his dreams and desires on hold to take care of this family he’s created, because he doesn’t want to end up like his own. And lastly, Rob’s character would experience a downward spiral once hitting college. Drugs, sex, booze would all take hold of him. All three friends would split apart during these experiences and ultimately come together near the end, each realizing something important. I had pictured some sort of rooftop conversation, just before sunrise. They’d speak softly to one another, each a broken person in their own right. They’d make half-hearted promises to one another to be there, since they’d all sort of forgotten one another since entering college. And then the sun would start to rise, and they’d stare out over the city and each would wonder what exactly they’d do now. And one of them would smile because, despite all the terrible things that had happened, there is always hope that tomorrow will be better. And then aliens come down and blow everything up. Roll credits.

It’s all cliché, I know. We weren’t aiming for anything original. Our thinking at the time was that while many of us are built (or made) to look unique, the things we feel and experience are decidedly not. Cliché is life, because everything has been done before. It wasn’t about being edgy or different. It was about expressing these new feelings in a way that we could relate to, and hope others could relate to as well. So yeah, it was typical, but it was ours.

As it turns out, the whole thing was moot because it never happened. The Life Factor intervened again and the story was left to the wayside. The next time we ever talked about collaborating was when we discussed making a video game. He’d program it, I’d write the story behind it. That too, never happened.

And while our screenplay might not have ever been written, it did give rise to something. Which I’ll write down in another entry, because I feel like this could ramble on.

Amazing what comes to mind from some simple song.

I don’t know

 

What are you waiting for?  Who, if anyone, are you waiting for?  Why are you waiting? 

These are the kinds of questions that seem to have been plaguing me since…for as long as I can remember.  I’ve always felt, since leaving high school, that I’ve been searching for something.  Identity.  Purpose.  Answers.  Anything.  Something more.

Sometimes, I feel like I should really be past all this.  I’m not old by any means, but I feel that by 25 we should have a good grasp on who we are, what life is about and what we want from it.  I feel like I’m staring at a chalkboard just recently erased.  I can see the smudges of all that was written before, but I can’t make anything from it.

Lately, it’s become more and more apparent that I’m having a hard time “fitting in”.  Where do I belong?  It all seems so juvenile; something we’d ask as kids moving up to high school and dealing with all the crazy hormones and emotions itching in our every fiber.  It’s funny, I guess, that I never really had those kinds of troubles in school.  I knew who my friends were.  I knew the crowd I could hang with.  I knew things.  Everything was secure and familiar.  God, I hate sounding like a whiny child.  I guess that’s how I feel though, and I should own up to that, no matter how embarrassing or stupid it seems.

I’ve lost my train of thought, as I’m so apt to do.  I’m feeling something, that I expressed earlier in a Tumblr post, that I just can’t put into words.  It’s shades of grays and blues.  It’s the sorrowful moan of a bow coming skillfully, and slowly over the strings of a violin.  It’s being alone in a sea of a million people.  It’s a vast, endless cast of stars and twinkling lights.

I just don’t seem to fit in anywhere.  Everyone around me seems to be, to an extent, a personification of a stereotype.  And shallow.  And at an arms length. 

I was told by a friend of mine that I’m not a “good gay”.  She brought up the fact that Pride is next weekend and that she wanted to go.  I told her I had never been.  That’s when she (playfully?) accused me of being a bad gay.  And that got me thinking.

If by me not being a “Good Gay” you mean I don’t mold myself into the sterotype, then yes.  Yes, I’m a bad gay.  I don’t watch Logo or any of it’s programming.  (I hate reality TV, gay or straight.)  I don’t have an over-attentiveness to fashion, or really care what exactly I look like upon leaving my house.  I don’t spend hours preparing to go out.  I don’t particularly like gay bars/clubs anymore.  Been there, done that scene.  It’s played out.  I don’t like the music most gay guys blast.  The lame, crappy pop shit just does nothing for me.

So when I’m around other gay guys, conversation usually stems around those kinds of things.  Things I can’t relate to, because I just don’t like them.  Most guys I’ve had an attraction to or dated seem to have some of those qualities I mentioned above, and that’s fine.  We are who we are.  I mean, I wouldn’t want to date someone just like me.  Where’s the fun and experience in that?

Where am I even going with this?  I’m just tired.  I feel like I have no one I can really relate to or count on anymore.  Someone who I can completely open up with and share all the quirky aspects of who I am. 

My love for video games, anime and the written word.  My love for Japanese horror movies.  For Samurai films.  Kung-Fu movies.  Indie music.  Rock and Roll.  Classical.  Sushi, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican and Italian Foods.  Philosophical conversations about why we are here and where we are going. 

I can’t type anymore.  I’m done for tonight.

It's So Over

Dear ______, I just want to take this moment and say that I regret sleeping with you. Having sex with you ruined everything and I feel spoiled. I never want to see you again. It's over. Sincerely, Yours Truly, But Not Really

That Guy At Pei Wei I Liked (But Never Knew)

 

             I wonder, as I hand him my Visa debit card, just what kind of lover he is.  Gentle, perhaps?  Does he hold them tenderly with, what I imagine to be, the softest hands this world has known?  Do his lips, so supple and moist, leave the tenderest traces of feeling over their bare flesh?  With such simple motions do all worry and care cease to be and find them to be replaced with an almost unbearable sense of calm and security?  When he enters them, does he do so with a slow-burning intensity, his eyes fixated on the person beneath him so that they know they are truly the only other person in this universe that has been born of their connection?  When they are both riding the highs of this passion and sweat has come to gleam on their flesh, so intimately connected in the most visceral of moments; when the apex of which culminates in an explosion of fire and ice, such contradictory and complementary sensations; when the lull has quieted their racing hearts and they come slowly down from such great heights, I wonder: does he hold them again, or does he leave?  Does he call?  Does he still even care?

            All this enters and leaves my mind in the span of seconds it takes for him to swipe my card through the reader and hold it expectantly for me to take back. My eyes meet his for a safe three seconds, during which I express my thanks and deposit the card safely into the confines of my wallet, which in I place into the satchel I have crossed over my chest.

            “You know,” he says while he gathers up the two bags that comprise my order, “every time I see your name print out for an order, I think, “wow, he just can’t get enough of us.’”  For a moment I think he has said, “can’t get enough of me” and my face, I can feel, burns something brilliant and I stumble for some sort of response.

            In my minds eye I can see myself laughing the careless laughter of some charismatic, suave gentleman of leisure.  Of course no such thing happens and instead I stand there, just looking at him with an expression I hope does not come across as if what he has said makes me appear to be ill or, even worse yet, melancholy. 

            “Yeah, well, um, you’re pretty close to my, ah, work.”  It comes out chopped and almost barely audible, to my ears at least, amidst the buzz and hum of a kitchen at lunch.  Behind him shouts are being made for orders; people at tables chat listlessly about things that, in my world are insignificant, but strike a chord of envy in my chest all the same.  Outside the sun is shining.

            My response must have been adequate, because the bags containing lunch are placed before me.  “Chopsticks or forks?”  The query is indication enough that our business here, because that is all this ever has been, is swiftly on its way to conclusion.  My contact with this man, who I have interacted with on the most basic of levels countless times before, is coming to an end. 

            I shake my head, add a quick “no thanks” and gather up the bags and paper cups, all emblazoned with the restaurants logo, into my eager hands.

            “Have a nice day,” he says to me before offering a polite smile before turning back to the growing line at another register. 

            I offer up a “you too”, though I imagine it has already been lost in the noise around us.  I walk away from all this to the soda fountains in the back where jars of red pepper sauce and spicy mustard sit neatly in the little cubby holes of the shelf along the wall.  I fill the two cups with iced tea, squeeze an orange slice into each one and deposit the squished carcass into the liquid.  Lid on.

            I place my ear buds back into place and Jarrod Gorbel has replaced Damien Rice.  I can’t place the song at just this moment because I have once again let my attention wander to the man behind the counter.  He is attractive, I finally deduce, though I had come to that conclusion a long time ago. 

            Moving past everyone again, I don’t even spare him a final glance.  Music streams into my ears, some song about infidelity.  My hips push the door open and I step out into the warming afternoon sunlit parking lot.  No, I muse to myself as my feet carry me back toward the office across the way, he is probably not gentle at all.

rabbit hole

I watched this movie, tonight, after already being in a mood that was probably not helped by watching. Perhaps though, I could appreciate the sorrow, despair, sadness, rage and…hope that it conveyed because of this.

I won’t go into a synopsis of the film. If you want to know what it’s about, Google it. Watch a trailer on YouTube. Rent it (because you can’t own it yet).

While I was watching it, I had to keep asking myself: “How does one move past something like that?” It would seem so easy being on the outside of a horrible situation offering someone your shoulder or an ear or words or…whatever. After all, at the end of day, you get to walk away, back to your undisturbed life while those going through something so horrible have to contend with the fact that “s/he is gone…forever…and not coming back.” They are gone and nothing you can do will change that.

I hate to call things “real”, but that’s what this film felt like to me. It seemed (because I’ve never been through anything like it before) like what would be an honest portrayal of a couple experiencing grief over a dead son. It was utterly depressing, but it did end on a note of hope. It wasn’t a happy ending, but it was a hopeful one. That maybe, someday down the line, they wouldn’t move past the fact that their son was taken from them, but they’d learn to…accept it and cope and adapt.

It reminded me of an amazing book I read two years ago, “Beautiful Children”. A child runs away, disappears into the night and is never heard from again. Part of the narrative focuses on the parents and how they cope (or lack thereof) with the situation. I almost imagine having your child runaway would be worse (if such a thing is even quantifiable). I mean, when your child dies, you know they are gone and not coming back. When they run away, there’s always that hope that they’ll return; the never knowing for sure what happened, or why. Or even if they’re still alive.

Watching it brought me back to this idea I had for a story. I had started part of it, somewhere down the line, but I lost inspiration and quit. I wanted to tell the story of a teenage boy who kills himself, and the aftermath. I had certain scenes all formed in my head. The opening would be of the mother in her therapist’s office, talking about the morning she discovered her son. How she woke up in the morning. Took a shower. Started making breakfast. Grabbed the paper. You know, doing all these mundane morning things we all take for granted. And then she goes to get her son out of bed and... Because, you know, that's how these things go. Death and loss aren't movies. There's not always some grand, exciting scene. It just happens and most times without warning. Just...bam. One moment life is positively fine, and the next it's not.

Another scene, one I almost sat down and wrote out a couple weeks ago, involved the father coming home after a long day of work. The house is empty. He starts to walk to his room, but something stops him. He turns to the door that belonged to his son’s room and he can’t help but go in. At that point I’d have gone into detail about how untouched everything was. How, as the father goes through everything that his son left behind, he never really even knew him at all. That he had never taken the time to get to know him or want to. And he breaks down and just loses it. In my head, if it were to be put into the screen, it’s this really dramatic, yet quiet scene of both rage and despair; love and loss and regret.

That scene I found I couldn’t write, because I was drawing from my own relationship with my father and imagined that it was him coming into my room and looking over my things and realizing that he never really knew me at all. And it got to be too much, so I stopped.

I think I might pick back up on it though. Of course, come tomorrow and this feeling having worn off, I might not.

I also think about these things I write down and post on my blog sites. Or on my journal on my hard drive, which is essentially everything I post to the public. Because let’s face it, I don’t think anyone really reads this. Even if they do, you don’t know me outside of this screen. You’ll probably never shake my hand, or laugh with me or cry with me. You’ll probably never have lunch or share drinks and stories. We won’t ever drive insanely fast down the lane with both windows rolled down, screaming out the lyrics of some punk or indie-rock song.

That’s okay though. In the end, I think that there’s this subconscious drive in all of us to want to be remembered. I know I’ll never be remembered for doing something great and historic. I take a small comfort, I guess, in knowing that someone, someday might stumble across all this in a random Google search. Maybe they’ll read an entry, find it interesting and continue on. And then they’ll keep reading until all my posts have been absorbed.

And even though I won’t know it because I’ll be long dead and gone, I’ll at least have been remembered. Thought of. Mortality is so…

We are mysterious creatures, yet in the end so much it seems not to matter.

Oh. One other thing I liked about rabbit hole. In part of the movie, the mother meets with the boy who hit her son. They talk and through each other cope. Well, he makes this comic book about a boy who travels through parallel universes, searching for his father.

At one point, the mother, after having read it and they’re talking says something like to the effect that she likes the idea that, somewhere out there in another time and space, she is happy.

I like that idea too. That maybe, in another universe, there is another version of me who isn’t so hard on himself. Who isn’t so unhappy for reasons he can’t quite explain. Who takes the love given to him with open arms and doesn’t question or sabotage or make light of it. Who can express himself outside of words and blogs and to the people in his life who can reach out and touch him. Who can laugh honestly and without fear of rejection. Who can be himself around everyone, and everyone likes him for it.

Who can sleep peacefully at night and not dwell on things that are best left in another universe altogether.