Week In Review

This has been a long week and, frankly, I'm glad it's done.

This week's theme seems to have been: Picking Your Battles. Growing up, I viewed the world as a black and white place. There was right and there was wrong. To an extent, I still view the world that way. But, now that I'm older, I'm more inclined to weigh the consequences of taking a stance over the reward. My senior year of HS I nearly didn't graduate because I took a stance. It was fairly stupid but I was sure I was in the right. I refused to ever go back to that class and as a result I failed and nearly didn't graduate. At the time, that was huge. But I was armed with my belief that I was right, and the rest didn't matter. I believed that compromising my ideals was the worst thing I could do.

These days I face those types of decisions with far more frequency. I'm asked to do things at my job that aren't necessarily wrong, but that I don't agree with. But I do them because I don't want to jeopardize my career and my ability to maintain a lifestyle to which I'm grown accustomed. The old me wouldn't like the new me so much, but then again, the old me didn't have to keep food in the fridge.

I saw Where The Wild Things Are last night. I'd read that it was visually beautiful but lacking in story or depth. I couldn't disagree with the second part of the statement more.

As I began to get old, I frequently wondered when I'd feel like an adult. When I'd grow up. When I'd stop feeling like I was just making it up as I went along. It wasn't until my late twenties that I finally realized that never happens. We just get better at faking it. Adults are just big kids who have forgotten how to live in a moment. And that's what I think WtWTA was about. Or to put it better: The Wild Things are Max. The movie portrays, with aching accuracy, the alienation, loneliness, and confusion of being a child. All anyone really wants is to sleep in a real pile with the people who love them, and to live in a fort that cuts out the brains of the people they don't want to come in.

I get the criticisms people had. There really isn't a driving story. There's no external conflict or action driving the story. It's just an angry boy who wants people to love him and pay attention to him. It's what happens when he becomes the parent. It's his realization that being a child is hard, but that being a parent is equally difficult. It's a beautiful, sad, haunting story that conveys a simple message: being a family is difficult, but worth it.

As for the technical stuff: The little actor who played Max was spot on. Everything about his performance felt genuine. The monsters and the visuals were holy-crap-awesome. The soundtrack by Karen O was inspired.

I've been working my way through my copy edits. This is one of my last chances to go through The Deathday Letter, so I'm trying to be extra careful. It's tough though. I've seen these words so many times that they're all jumbled together. I can't wait for everyone else to see the words though, because I love them so.

NaNo is coming up and I'm über excited.

Also, if you haven't been watching Dollhouse, please do so before it gets cancelled. And watch Glee.

Finally, since I finally got and released my cover, I also now have my book tattoo.