life is a highway

so, yesterday was thanksgiving, as i'm sure you are aware. if you didn't know, sorry for spoiling the surprise.

justin went to his aunt's house in wallace and i didn't go. when i came back from CA, justin's father & stepmom made it clear that they don't want me in their house. i was 'dis-invited' if that is the correct phrase. i'll admit, it actually hurt. i felt i had gone out of my way to be incredibly civil and to try and adjust to their vastly different way of life. if there was any friction, it was mostly due to the idea that i was fairly offended by their need to indulge in the fairly tale of "close friendship" that made my relationship palatable to them. in fact, one of the most divisive issues happened when i made a joke that got taken the wrong way and the crux of the issue was that i had inadvertently addressed the fact/reality that justin and i were physically intimate with each other.

i love telling this story in person, but maybe it's time that i write it down before i forget it. there is this cozy little shack in a small town called Osbourn that is called "the snake pit". if you've ever seen dante's peak (the pierce brosnan epic), then you have seen this restaurant. it's like an old west TGI Friday's. there are old saws on the walls and various nick-nacks. it's kind of charming in it's way.

well, justin's folks used to always make dinner when we came over, but this one time, we decided to go out. i ended up footing the bill for everyone's dinner, i'd like to add before we start. it turns out that the specialty at this particular venue is called "rocky mountain oysters". RMO is the polite way of saying bull testicles. it's fried and breaded bulls balls. i was feeling particularly adventurous and i decided to try them out. everyone else ordered standard fare and it wasnt too long before we had our food in front of us.

now, for some reason, justin's dad had left the table. maybe to wash his hands, get something from the bartender...who knows. so it's just justin, myself and his step-mother, heidi. she turns to me and says,"i can't believe you ordered that."

without thinking, i blurt out, "well, i know what they taste like normally, but i wanted to see what they tasted like fried."

now, i though it was funny. turns out she was mortified. she's one of those people that plays her cards so close to her chest. i never knew when i'd gone too far until justin told me a few days later about a conversation that he'd had with her. to add insult to injury, when justin's father found out about it later he was super-pissed and it became a thing.

it was always like that with them. we would hang out and then go home. two days later, i would find out from justin that i had said or done something to offend and no one said boo while i was there. i got tired of that and so i was hurt, but not surprised when justin told me that they no longer wanted me around them.

now, the rest of his family, i got along with just fine. i like both of his aunts and pretty much everyone else. either way, everyone involved thought it would be a good idea if i stayed home. no worries.

i spent most of my time on the couch being lazy and watching tv. i watched a few movies and just kind of relaxed. i found my roommate's copy of disney/pixar's "cars" and watched that to start out with. i genuinely forgot how good that movie is. i have a great deal of respect for pixar in general, but i am in awe of the amount of talent that they employ. there hasn't been a pixar flop yet. i just saw ratatouille a week or two ago and it was outstanding.

stay with me, this all has a point. i'm going somewhere with this, i promise.

anyway..."cars" (if you don't know) is about a young rookie race car having an amazing year at the track and is on the cusp of winning the piston cup, the end-all-be-all of the animated racing world. he is on his way to california for a tie-breaking race and along the way he gets stranded in this backwards town on route 66 that got was abandoned when the interstate re-directed traffic away from them. while he is there, he falls in love with a porsche (who wouldn't) who loves the town for the idyllic stop that it once was. he also befriends an old rusty tow-truck name mater that is low on brains and big on heart. ( i feel like i'm writing the back of the DVD, lol). the race-car learns in the end (he makes it to the race) that there are more important things than winning.

it's an old maxim. one i've heard before. a young man in a leopard print jacket once told me as a child "life moves pretty fast, and if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you just might miss it". this was after singing danke shoen(sp?) on a parade float in the middle of downtown chicago.

as i always do, i watched the behind-the-scenes doc on the inspiration behind cars and it had a great interview with john lassiter. over the course of the 16 or so minutes, lassiter spells out the lessons to be learned from cars, or rather the lessons that he had in mind when he started. the whole character arc is this guy living alone in the fast lane that is forced to slow down for a minute and learns to enjoy life.

"life is what happens while you're making plans" -j.lennon

lately, i've been lamenting to myself silent reproaches about living in idaho and the choices that got me here. when i was a kid, i hated living in the midwest, because it always seemed to me that life was happening "out there". in europe, in NY, in LA, anywhere that wasn't home. i've always had that mind-set. i've always felt trapped by it. if i'm not in the middle of it, i feel like i am wasting my time.

i feel helpless.

if i'm honest with myself, i feel very trapped here. i feel like the rest of the world is just kind of passing me by...again. it's not really cabin fever. i think it's just wanderlust. i miss waking up in the morning and being excited about my work.

film is the only thing that got me up at 5 in the morning, excited about the day. i'm tired of wasting my life at this dead-end job.

however.....

yesterday, sitting on the couch in my pjs, i got this sudden burst of "maybe this is all happening for a reason". maybe there is some fatal flaw in my personality that i need to salve before moving on to the next part of my life. i learned a lot about my experiences with justin's folks. maybe there's some lesson there that i need to figure out.

as always, i'm trying to change my perspective and the way that i think. i have to, if not just for pure survival reasons. if i keep feeling like i'm missing out, then i guess i won't see all of the wonderful things around me. unfortunately, the grass will always seem greener somewhere else.

i know i spend a lot of time whining lately. i can't help it. the whole point of writing this blog has been a personal assignment in catharsis. there's all of this stuff that i need to get out one way or another. all of these thought that i need to organize. i'm probably harping on about the same things, but i really hope that there is some kind of character arc.

a story without any kind of character arc is just boring.