Annoyances

I came across this Metafilter entry and immediately understood the genius behind his post. I pulled down some of my issues of ReadyMade and began flipping through the profiles.

Mattholomew is right on. There was always something that bothered me about this magazine (and the majority of indie food/craft/DIY blogs out there), and I just never figured out what it is until now. All of the profiles are of people whose lives are just SO interesting and every minute is a whirlwind of free-spirited eccentricity. They all have a tiny, playful smirk as they show off their 900 sq. foot studio in Manhattan or their giant, bio-diverse log cabin with vaulted ceilings and large oak tables hewn by Hemingway's cousin-in-law. High end designer furniture is arranged with the eye of an interior decorator, but there's always a collection of something oddball: "I collect potsherds, found soda bottles, marbles, bones, shells, rocks, beads, hand spindles, and fiber/yarn...in other words, I'm a landlocked beachcomber!" Oh, aren't you just?

I always wondered how the woman who hand prints t-shirts with homemade dye that she squeezes from various produce and her husband who repairs ukeleles have either the time or the money to flit about town to all the hotspots.
I won't lie, when I first came across this magazine and these blogs, I absolutely wanted to be these people (I want to churn my own butter using a wooden churner I found in an alley in Soho and then restored myself!), and then fretted when my life just didn't seem to be able to go in that direction. Why can't I quit my office job to write a recipe book and travel about the world meeting other bloggers who on a whim open up their own wildly successful organic bakery? Because it's unrealistic and I imagine the constant striving to find a new, innovative recipe for kale and quinoa is exhausting. It reminds me of the Mr. Show sketch where David keeps getting more and more unique animals until he finally get his very own Albino and exclaims "you're so different...I'M so different!!"

So, essentially: STFU ReadyMade (still love your projects, though) and ApartmentTherapy, and all the other magazines that flaunt this Bohemian lifestyle that only trust fund babies could afford. I like making my own yogurt, and I enjoy growing organic rosemary, but I also really enjoy sitting around in flannel pants I got from Target, playing GTA4 and eating Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (without an ounce of artisanal asiago flaked on top).

n00b

My life is kind of like a movie. Not the exciting part of the movie, but the boring part at the opening of the film.

There would be a montage of my redundant day-to-day activities: there's a shot of me getting into my Jetta, then me flipping on NPR and sipping coffee, then getting in to work, editing an Excel spreadsheet, making small talk with coworkers, eating lunch at my desk, repeating the morning activities in the afternoon, then driving 45 minutes home in bad traffic, eating dinner alone, then sleeping.

And then, depending on the type of movie, any number of exciting things happen to completely shatter my otherwise mundane life and give it new meaning, purpose.

Rom-Com: The montage would start back up, only this time I would flip on NPR and look down for a second, then hit something with my car, and it turns out to be a cute guy on a bike who then sues me, but we end up in a situation where we're isolated together, angry at first, and then come to realize how similar we are and make out in the elevator/mine shaft/abandoned fireworks factory. Lawsuit is dropped. Babies are had.

Sci-Fi/action: Boring life montage starts up again, sipping my coffee in my car when a giant UFO looms slowly out of nowhere directly over me. Hot sciencey/military guy happens to need a car at the exact moment he's by me, jumps in, flashes a badge, and I take him to the nearest military base. I end up having some special skill I never even knew about and I save mankind. Oh, and my clothes get torn and when my hair gets messed up it turns out I'm really hot. Military/science guy and I make out underneath the explosions of the attacking aliens' crafts.

Horror: Strange things start happening to my everyday routine. Subtle at first, like I find weird things in my apartment (a little girl's hair ribbon perhaps), and then it gets progressively scarier (a rabid dog emerges from my closet, chases me and then disappears, my reflection does something completely different than I am doing, a clown rapes me, etc.). I find out Satan has marked me for death and demons have infiltrated my apartment. The hot law enforcement guy that was extremely skeptical at first now believes me when he comes over to do a routine check and finds me about to be killed by a knife flying around of it's own volition. He and I make out at an extremely inappropriate time, but defeat evil and emerge bloody and stunned, holding hands, from the ruins of my apartment.

Indie: On my boring commute to work everyday I notice post it notes all over my city with strange phrases on them like: "your world is my world", "maybe...", "would you do it again?". Terribly intrigued, I pursue the note writer in a meandering, light-hearted journey in which I encounter eccentric characters who teach me to be myself and that there is so much more to life. By the time I find the post-it note writer it turns out it's a really hot, pensive guy, and I am changed from my journey, eccentric enough myself that he can see how much we're meant to be together. We make out. There is no explanation for what happened to my job or life before this journey.

OK, so a few key learnings here are: I need to find my movie ending, and movie writers fucking suck so I need to write my own.

Have any of you out there completely rewrote your life movie? Like stood up at your crappy office job and said "that's enough!" then stormed out to successfully pursue what you love? Without needing to desperately search for romance while doing it?

I would love to believe that that can work, but if Hollywood taught us anything, it's that movies are a shitty basis for life.