So, I was talking with Ben about the papers I had written in college, specifically the papers that I wrote in my senior year. I wrote a paper about the nuclear bomb as portrayed in Cold War film and media which proved meandering but completely engrossing to write and research.
I was explaining to him that the film The Manchurian Candidate came out at the height of the Cuban Missile crisis, and than contrasted the media reaction to films with sensitive material coming out after the attacks of 9/11 (specifically the postponement of the release of the film Big Trouble, which featured a plane hijacking as a major plot point.)
After a lengthy discussion, we started compiling an outline for a book about the systemic shift among the American public and media in their reactions to film and television from the era of World War II to the post 9/11 era, specifically regarding violent conflicts and their portrayals.
The real reason I think that this book is worth pursuing is that my generation and I were the target audience for the films made after the post 9/11 period, both from an escapist, "comfort-food" angle, and in the films examining the whys and wherefores of the 9/11 tragedy and Iraq War.
I had a crazy night last night, and I will go into further detail about it tomorrow.
Tonight I want to talk about Mother's Day.
My mom and I are really two peas in a pod. The same things make us angry, and we push people's buttons in the same way. This means that though we love each other to pieces, we drive each other up a wall on a fairly frequent basis. (It also means that we feel horrible in the same way about making each other insane, and have long periods of butting heads to fix said instances of turning each other nutso.)
However, tonight I want to talk about a really interesting thing that happened to me recently.
As you know if you've been reading, I have committed to writing on this blog every day. What I have not said before is that I have a separate (and also difficult) writing challenge for myself of keeping a daybook/journal/braindumpster/whathaveyou in paper form as well, with the commitment to write in it every day. The original intent was to use it for something like a planning book for this blog, to develop ideas and make them stronger for self publishing on this public forum. However, as is usually the case with me, I was having a hard time getting started.
So I wrote about my pen.
I have a strong love of office supplies that borders on obsessive-compulsive. (I am pretty sure that I also acquired this from my mother as well.) I required the paper surface for my notebook to be smooth and creamy in texture, thick but not too thick, and pens that glide, with ink that looks amazingly black and rich before it dries.
For this notebook I had treated myself to new pens, medium point black gel, that I had recognized in the store as a tool I had used before and enjoyed. I don't think I remembered where I had originally used it, but I knew it would serve in the meantime.
It was not until I wrote in the date that I remembered that this was not just a good pen. This was an AWESOME pen. Ink flowed out beautifully, with no globs in sight, giving me just the right blacker-than-black sheen before drying enough not to smudge. It made my horrible chicken scratch handwriting look nice (or if not nice, charmingly artistic.)
It came back like a punch in the stomach where I had used this pen first.
In 2008, my family went to visit my older brother in Morocco, where he was living and working at the time. I was a miserable little snot on this trip for a variety of reasons, mainly that I was not willing to admit to myself that I was already dealing with major depression. I was determined to be unhappy on this voyage, and so far was living up to my goal rather well.
On the particular day in question, we were making a jaunt to Berber territory, where there was a waterfall. We learned upon arriving that the trip to the waterfall required a significant hike up a very steep mountain. I am pretty sure that hiking is one of my private circles of hell, especially when it is 90 degrees outside. Living up to my goals once again re:miserable snottyness, I baulked and told my family that I would be staying at the bottom, thankyouverymuch. I did not desire more blisters than I had already gotten on our few days in Morocco.
My mother, bless her, decided that she would stay at the bottom of the mountain with me, where we found shade in a tiny Berber cafe. I had planned on knitting on a shawl that I was working on, but quickly got bored. My mother is an avid travel journaler, and had bought a pack of assorted gel pens for the trip. She handed me a burgundy pen, and suggested that if I was bored, I could write in my journal, or maybe get a head start on postcards.
I wrote more in that journal than I had on any trip up to that point. It was an amazing afternoon that I would not trade for anything. For several hours, I was able to forget my horrible attitude, and have a genuinely amazing time with the woman who is almost too much like me to handle.
I hope she remembers that day as fondly as I do, and I hope she knows how amazing I think she is every day, even when one of us is driving the other crazy.
I love you Mom. Happy Mother's Day.
The following clip (just to lighten the mood) is from Adaptation. I saw this clip tonight in the excellent screenwriting documentary Tales From the Script, and it illustrates the primary issue I have when writing. Take it away, Nick Cage:
