Independence Day Dreams

INTERNET, let me tell you about my dream!

I totally booted up my comptron several hours ago to type all this out, but I got distracted. Because television, as some like to say.

Anywhoser. So, if I remember correctly, which even if I don't, it doesn't really matter, this is how I went down. If it was at all similar to anything, maybe it was Memento style or like some sort of low-prestige, vastly-entertaining crime drama like Castle.

I like reverse engineered it (in my dream) from these pictures of someone at their 4th of July party. I remember looking at a computer screen, wondering why one picture had a white background while all the others had a black background, and they were very high quality pictures and were they allowed to take in-the-moment quality photos like that or was it secretly a photo shoot for the sole purpose of filling in picture frames. Maybe one day these smiling party-goers would have "$4.97" and "8 x 11" stamped on their stomachs, to one day live in someone's home for several months before they remembered to put in a picture of someone they actually know. They didn't rush, because these party people really did look they were having a good time. Maybe I do know them.

It's too late in the day, so I don't remember much else, but the party was in this corn field that grew dinosaur eggs instead of corn (which is totally normal) and everybody camped there and I want to go camping and just sort of lay there in the cold, smell the fire, look at the stars and think about infinity, and maybe a corn field would be just as good as a place as a bear-populated forest. Maybe. Forest not Forrest, Cait. Forrest is a person.

And when everybody woke up, there were these authority figures that SLID in in these green human-sized bird cages, with white Christmas lights twined up all around them, and if I was to do interior decorating in my own home, I should hope that it has stuff that cool.

Maybe this wasn't a dream. Maybe I just woke up and implanted a dream so that I'd have something to think about today to distract me from the "Kroll Bond Rating Agency".

Meditation

Alright, this is going to start out differently than I thought. Because... lots of things. Anyway, "meditation" reminds me of Owen Wilson because "meditation" is only a small hop away from "mediation" which is an interesting business approach, paying anyone for consulting services because you're mad but not mad enough to involve more official people which is the main reason I watched that one show with Sarah Shum-aloom-ading-dong (I straight-up cannot remember what her name is, and I could just imdb.com it but I'm on a roll here!)), and that's also what redhead lady... AMY ADAMS, that's her name, does in that one movie where she's a princess and whats-his-face is a divorce lawyer and she ruins everything by getting the couple back together, and that's also what Owen Wilson and Vince whats-his-face do in that Wedding Crashers movie. And also, Isla Fischer is in that movie, and I bet she meditates. Probably.

Hollywood types supposedly like yoga. I don't think I quite see the appeal, but that might just be my blanket disapproval of exercise. Maybe if exercise involved more movie watching, then I could get into that. Maybe I'll start the next season of Alias today and do some lunges. I saw this thing on the internet that said lunges are good for your butt. (Oooh, "lunges" just looks like I'm really having a hard time spelling "lungs"... interesting. It's spelled fairly simply, but it does NOT look like it sounds.)

On second thought- Nah.

So I came here to mark this occasion, and it's already over, because in the process of wanting to mark it, I stopped it. I realized that I wasn't thinking about anything. My mind "was" a blank. My mind is never a blank. I'm not saying it's all about profound spurts of wisdom, rolling around in my skull 27/7, but I'm usually at least thinking about my hair. I'm pretty shallow when it comes to hair, really. Which is so annoying. Then I think about how annoying that is. Then that inevitably reminds me of something else- AND OH MY GOD- I just realized that "remind" has "mind" in it, and there's like little Spongebobs running around the office in your brain, looking through all the filing cabinets, going through the mind process and re-doing it, thinking about it for the second time. WHOA.

So, with my mind blank, like it WAS, and may never be again, I might have been able to meditate. Like, legs crossed applesauce, finding nirvana, floating a few inches off the floor.

I don't think I'm missing out, really.

Rom-Com Gimmick

(Edit: this post was written in October/November of 2012, and is now being published because science. Newton's Law of Motion. What are you going to do about it?)

What about if you told a story of two people, two soul mates, if you will, that meet/don't meet or whatever, and you don't ever show them together? Like is it really real if they aren't together, is it just an illusion, or what? So you start out, and they aren't together, and they start not being together from the day they are born. Then they grow up and they are not together. Then they meet- we don't see that, but we hear about it. And they miss each other, we see all of that. We see the loneliness and the hope but never them sharing their lives.
You call it- Apart.

Also, I just finished Perks of Being a Wallflower.
I think the title was a little misleading. He was quiet, not a non-participant. Not a wall. Maybe a flower. For some reason I get so confused by what those movies are about when they are all alone for the whole movie, like that Buried one or 127 hours, but then I get so jealous/frustrated when a supposed loner is an outright party-er. One or the other, Cait.

And Veronica don't forget the Veronica stories. She is jotted down somewhere.

Suddenly

I recently stumbled upon an article written by a publisher about what to take out of your writing. It seems that this publisher is not a fan of several different phrases that I had thought to be common, and therefore, occasionally comfortable to see. One such phrase/wording Mr. Publisher shunned was "Suddenly." Or maybe it was "all of the sudden..." which would make more sense because how could something be partially of the sudden, but whatever. First seeing this, there was nothing but disappointment, because of my appreciation for the children's book. How could you not love it? That piggie in his little train conductor's outfit is adorable (not to mention how skilled he is at averting death...) I feel like I may have once read a French translation of it, because my increasingly disappearing French vocabulary still contains suddenly=soudain, if I'm not mistaken.

Anyway, once I got over this percieved betrayal and got to thinking about the explanation, I can't stop thinking about it. Mr. Publisher says that "suddenly" is redundant, because of course it happened suddenly, everything that happens is sudden. One minute it's this, then the very next minute, it's changed to that! I've decided that this is accurate, especially concerning people. Observable changes always feel sudden to me, even if I could see them coming. Like, let's say my sister was a werewolf and the day before the full moon, her arms get all super-hairy and her back distorts all gangly and hunched and her teeth are just getting longer and longer. And she would have claws coming out of her toes. We can't forget the claws. Even though you know she's becoming this werewolf/more sarcastic/more responsible/whatever transition is supposedly "gradual", all things are quantified and classified. She's a minor. She's an adult. She's a student. She's a nurse. She's a human. She's a werewolf. Whenever that classification happens to change, even if it's been developing for years, if it's significant enough to even note in the first place, the officiality of it all is magnificent. It's a weight, a big symbolic weight thrown on to your shoulders, this classification, I mean. And that's the trouble with goodbyes.

One moment they're there. Then they are just gone. I'm getting to the point where I want to make as small of a deal about all goodbyes as humanly possible. I don't want to have to ease out of it, because a little-bit-there is there and a little-bit-gone is just as annoying as being gone. It's just awkward, and I don't need ANY help in that department. Not that there aren't more awkward people around, it's just that I'm the one I have to deal with 24/7. Having to stop any conversation, whether I was going to the bathroom or going to sleep or leaving the country is just ridiculous. I want to just reduce all goodbyes to a spectrum of "hold that thought" to a hug and a "I'll text you later." Anything out of that spectrum is too hard. I don't want to watch people walk away, or worry that I should look over my shoulder while I'm leaving so that it doesn't seem like I don't care. I do care, which is the problem. Do other people care about that, though?

Internet, Guess What I'm Doing

No, really, guess!



You can't guess? That's alright. No one in their right mind would guess, "Cat, I bet you're probably eating a jar of peanut butter, organizing your Google Chrome bookmarks to match the ones on Firefox, and reading Aer Lingus's policy about bringing 'baby push chairs'." Actually, I suppose you could guess that... that's a fairly common activity over here on my end.

YOU DON'T KNOW ME AT ALL, DO YOU, INTERNET!

This is where the leading lady would suggest spending time apart, "to think," even though that's like a super dumb idea to get to know each other better. JUST SAYING.

Mark of a Lone Wolf

Oh man. That is a KICK BUTT subject line, is it not? It is. I have decided. I was going to go with something else originally, but then I decided that "Mark of a Lone Wolf" seemed really badass, so that's what I went with. Then I wrote this little SHHHHPIEL because I think it's meta and funny. Meta-funny if you will.

I'm really starting (false, more accurately- continuing) to enjoy my own company.

Example: Honey Honey came up on the shuffle in Windows Media Player on my laptop and I started smiling. "I like this song," I thought to myself, and I was so glad I had the gumption to put in into my collection.

Good lord.

More examples to come.

Veronica and Morbidity

Remember that one time with my bitchin' status update? "There's always that one part of the movie, right after the happiest bit, where I just wish everybody in the whole movie would just die... You know, for their own good." I think I got like 4 likes on that status. Probably the most likes I ever got. Anywhoser.

Last words are awesome. I don't really remember what exactly I was going to say about that. It was so long ago that I decided I wanted to talk about this, but then got too tired, so left the tab open for a month to finish it. And this tab too: www.chillhour.com/the-last-words-of-25-famous-dead-writers/

Let the countdown begin

December 7, 2010

I posted the following on Facebook on December 7, 2010. One month after that, I received the opportunity to go to Cannes and fulfill my life dream at the ripe young age of 19 years old. Then I didn't take it because I was too poor. Because of that, I reserve the right to be proud that I was accepted into that program for the rest of my life.

Believe in yourself, people.

by Katie Lyon on Tuesday, 7 December 2010 at 23:38 ·

FYI, to you dream crushers of the world. 18 percent of people fear flying, but there is only a one in 300,000 something chance of dying in a plane crash. It is much less likely to become president, one in ten million, that dying in plane crash.

80 percent of people graduate high school. 60 percent of those people graduate college. Just guess how many of those people major in Political science, and then go out and try to run for political office with the goal of being president of the US one day? A pretty small percentage. Nobody thinks they can be president, but a percentage of people are actually natural born Americans and are over the age of 35, and have wanted to be the President of the United States enough to try. But everyone who gets onto a plane can die on it. So there are the chances of everyone having a one in 300000 something chance of dying on a plane, or everyone having a one in ten million chance of being president, when only 100 people actually try. REALISTICALLY, if you want it, you qualify, and people generally like you, you'd have a pretty good chance of being president of the United States.

Also. There is a 1/11500 chance for everyone to win an Academy Award. Those chances are better than dying on a plane, and eighteen percent of people fear flying (that's a lot of people.) How many people actually try and want to make movies, good movies? Basically I'm saying: next time you will see a post this long, it'll be about my Oscar.

Also, there is a one in 22000 chance in going pro. Also better than dying on a plane crash, which everyone has the talent to do.

You know what I love?

BURRITOS!

I had to say it. It's in the rules.

In addition to burritos, I love it when I do productive things without curling up into the anxiety fetal position which involves Tetris and permanent forehead wrinkles. I don't love Tetris, that's the problem.
I was in the shower (as I often am, as someone so dedicated to personal hygiene that I've showered every day this week!) and I was all worried that I was going to forget about what I wanted to say here. Then I thought about how I wanted to say that I was worried I would forget. Then I thought, wouldn't it be silly if I forgot about both things? Technically, now, that I've put one of them, I am no longer in danger of forgetting it. That's what cowboogers is all about. Anywho, I'm getting off track. So, you know what I love?

I love seeing people's genuine excitement. Especially famous people, because 98% of the people I interact with and see are people in the entertainment business that I watch on the internet... through Skype. I know a lot of famous people. Kirsten Bell? I know her. We had a chat about sloths, and I about cried- people's genuine excitement is so beautiful. My favorite example of beautiful example is from the beginning of an episode of White Collar, when Peter has had a fight with Elizabeth and is upset about. Neal tells Peter just to call Elizabeth and leave a message to tell her that he loves her, and Peter's face just lights up with relief and joy and happiness at the prospect of having this perfect solution to his problem. He grins from ear to ear, but even when his grin dies down, you can still tell that his whole attitude is changed. Excitement is like proof that people have faith in hope that they can be happy. By simply getting excited about something, they are saying that they trust that one day things will be wonderful, and by just trusting that- they are automatically happy. It's happiness about happiness, but even with how complicated I've made it sound, it seems like the purest, simplest happiness I can think of. Like the way children act- every good thing is the best thing ever and isn't it great how they have the best thing ever happening to them. The hyperactivity of children is their excitement about being alive pouring out of all of their tiny, bendy little bones.

I love daisies.

I love boy socks.

I love stories.

I love how when people who really know each other talk, even if it's just a normal conversation, it becomes absolutely adorable.

I love dark comedy.

I love quirky things- like Natalie Portman being equivalent to 10 goats.

I love the word "phenomenon" especially when people say it like fa-nam-ah-na, because it sounds like this:

I love when people (Robin from How I Met Your Mother) refer to babies as the "small, pudgy, can't sit up yet" version of children.

I love when people (Arizona from Grey's Anatomy) refers to children as the "tiny humans" who people just can't say no to.

I love when people (Barney from HIMYM) are doing a bit, then get interrupted, but continue to do the bit and it becomes the funniest thing ever. "She's a slutty nurse."

Audrey and Wardrobe Wants

I wish I could win the lottery and spend it all on clothes. You know?

Okay, so coats. I have been wanting a cute, longer, more professional coat than my poorly sewn Delia's disasters (they are covered in toothpaste stains and don't fit 100% properly (the purple one has tightness in the shoulders and down by the butt and the green one is just plain too big and a little too short)) so I have been coveting the coat from Yes Man. Lately I've been thinking about the Yes Man coat, and the alterations I want of it, and I don't know how much I'm in love with it anymore. It's been a long time since that fateful day in December that I first saw and coveted this coat. PICTURE EVIDENCE TIME:

I don't know. Then I had (am having) an Audrey marathon and my eyes feasted upon this orange thing of beauty. It was less blurry when the feasting took place...

 She looks like an adorable little tulip. And I look fabulous in orange. Not regal or gorgeous, mind you, but still pretty poppy and perky. I think this may be the new coat of coveting to take to the tailor. Also, I want to turn my purple pants into a skirt. Adorb's, right?

Let's take a look at other things I want from Breakfast at Tiffanys:
1. The claw foot tub couch
2. All those adorable kitten heel shoes, especially the white ones with a bow, trimmed with the tiniest hint of black around the edges. Very cute. Very sixties classy.
3. The pink princess outfit. See here:

4. The trench coat she wears in the final scene. You know, just a normal classic trench coat, not a black one, not a single breasted one, not a short one, a regular one that looks like Burberry but doesn't cost like it.
5. The tweed she's got going on underneath the orange coat. You can see it when they go to the library, it's adorable. It almost looks like a crop top with a high-waisted pencil skirt. Then there's the polo and tweed skirt that she wears to the bar. And you're like THEY HAD POLOS BACK THEN?

Apocalypse Not Now, But In December

I have a theory that Hollywood is afraid that the world is going to end this year, and that they won't have another opportunity to redeem themselves for the past couple of AWFUL summers of movie releases. So I get a Scottish Pixar Princess on June 22, called Brave. I get the Dark Knight Rises on July 20th. In May, maybe The Avengers or Hysteria or MIBIII won't suck. Seeking A Friend for the End of the World looks cute.  Spiderman has Emma Stone in it, so I might be forced to see it. I do really hate Spiderman. Apparently that Timothy Green movie is finally coming out in August. Everything else looks typical.

UPDATE: I forgot about 5 Year Engagement! I can see that one for my birthday :)

Quote:30

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
-Oscar Wilde

Do you think those authors, who we can recognize by that one portrait, ever look back at that selected picture and think that it's just not them. For example, do you ever think Oscar Wilde would have looked back at this:

and thought, "Dear lord, I look like a pretentious-ass-hat-wannabe-philosopher-pimp in this photo! I wish they would have used the one with my smartphone and duckface in the bathroom. That one was really me."

Administrative Assisting

That's what I want to do. I want to be a secretary when I grow up. I know it doesn't look like it, but I am SO organized, in my brain, there are little file cabinets of things. I have never watched Mad Men, but could this:

  be so bad? I think not. They look dapper. I want to look dapper, answer the phone and the door, get coffee, and not give a shit about money ALL OF THE FREAKIN TIME. I want to care about money because I wish I had a little more, so that I could afford to get Mom a clawfoot tub (that's the only thing left, really) by her birthday, not two months after her birthday. I am perfectly okay with that. I could be good at money but I certainly don't want to be. It's icky. It's dirty. I refuse to be associated with it. Unless it wants to be associated with me. In which case, who am I to refuse it's company? I'm not so high and mighty, after all. I'm just a secretary.

Alice: Mini Narcissist

The last dream I had was one of those you have in between the snoozes. You dream you get up and do all of the things that you need to do, then you wake up for real and you're like WHY AM I NO LONGER CLEANED AND DRESSED AND FED? It was like that, but I would keep waking up, looking over in the mirror on my closet and being shocked at how adorably gorgeous I looked. Then I'd go back to sleep, certain that I didn't need any extra time to put my face on, because I'm already breathtakingly attractive.

Then I woke up for real, and then I was like ye-gad! Then I fainted. True story. I left out some parts, but other than that, it totally happened.

Remind me to talk about fainting. And to get that burrito so that I have plenty of iron before I give blood.

Buttercream

That's what I smell right now. And burning feathers. I must have a brain tumor. Always smelling things (BURNING FEATHERS) that aren't there (BRAIN TUMOR).

Usually weird things, like potatoes or oatmeal cookies, or bacon tomato sandwiches. You know. Delicious things.