Benedict Arnold

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT: The Pauper Meets Her Nemesis

The time has come to address my Benedict Arnold.  The element of life that has double-crossed me.  The thing I most loved and trusted, but has reared its head to be my sworn enemy.  Everyone, meet Cinema.

A little backstory.  Cinema and I met at a young age.  There were cartoon iterations of the beloved spy during the years of memory that elude me today.  But my most vivid first viewing experience comes from Marcus Theaters in 1994 when the Tim Allen holiday masterpiece, The Santa Clause graced us with its affable presence.  But for reasons unbeknownst to me (but my brain might be able to tell you), I only recall this viewing experience due to a journal entry fixed in my mind recalling the moment I waited in line outside the theater SO FAR that I was stuck staring at the far more provocative poster for Interview With a Vampire (a film it took me nearly fifteen years later to (inter)view.)

Tagline brought to you by L. Ron Hubbard.

But it wasn't until 2002 when I fell in love with the most sinister of vixens.  She puffed her cigarette in the corner of a dimly lit jazz club, her lips lined in stop sign red, but her stare insisting "go."  Her name was Moulin Rouge.  A film I scoffed at during the seedy underbelly of trailers, but fell deep and hard during VHS distribution.  I was fourteen.  My brain whispered "no... not tonight."  But my heart screamed in ecstasy, "Yes, Yes!  Do me now!"

After that, I was hooked.  Adrenaline pumping through my veins every time a waifish teenager neglected to card me for an R-rated flick.  Closer, Sideways, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, oh God, yes!  You name it, I was there.

And as I gobbled up every ounce of Cinema I could gorge myself on, I fell deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole.  Where my life was full of awkward daytime interactions and late night humorous-only-to-me-and-three-other-people rendezvous in the parking lot of Giant, Cinema was were I could, how do you say? Get My Rocks Off.

This, but sans the bottle.

I quickly rejected the norms set in "chick flicks", as my untouched lips at the age of 17 so bitterly denounced.  But yet, I still binged on films that focused their existential follies on love.  Films that utilized narrative devices such as montages to skim over the hard work that creates product.  Films that allowed me to believe that a life story can exist in two hours, when life so churlishly lasts for much longer.

And now, at 26, and as a woman who has given up a decent, mind-numbing job to pursue this minx, I question her motives.  What does good Cinema do?  Does it provoke us?  Does it give us hope?  Does it show us reality?  How do you cope with life when you live most of it vicariously?

When life brings you down, you often look to music to find the truth in it.  As an adult, I like to think I dive into more substantial realms of emotion.  But even as a teenager, you turn to things like the latest pop sensation's drab takes on love to justify your crush on Football McQuarterback.

HE JUST GETS MY SOUL

So for the little Hannahs of the world, I want to create an existence of relativity.  I don't want to lose touch with the lows of life just because I've grown past them.  I want to hang on to the feelings of crushes lost, never-lasting friendships, and big deal moments that fade within the year.  I want to expound the truth.  The honesty of life.  A truth that Hollywood often neglects to address.

Because if I can do that, well, I don't want to say my life is worthwhile.  Honestly speaking, I'll probably have some major downs in my life post-truth speaking that will make me reflect back on grand statements like this.  But if I can create something that people can relate to, then at the very least, I've inspired someone to be something more than a stagnant viewer in their own life.

 

Don't You Forget About Me

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN: The Pauper Remembers...ish

Memory.  She's a tricky vixen.  The kind you pour into your glass thinking it's a good idea, but ending the night in a world of regret.

Your brain can only hold so many.  It's how it has been programmed since the dawn of time.  Much like your inbox, it will delete certain entries when it grows too full.  But unlike your inbox, it doesn't give you an option of what to preserve.

Why is it that I can vividly remember my brother explaining a nightmare he had about a monkey popping a balloon outside his window and bursting into histrionics, but I can't remember what I was doing exactly one week ago today?

It's rather unfair, isn't it?  That our brain gets to make these decisions about what it cares to preserve, but our conscious mind has no say.  Oftentimes, I've had friends recite moments of comedic impact that we shared, and I am forced to smile and nod and pretend that I have any recollection of what they are talking about.  And I search my mind for that moment, but it is lost.

When we lose moments that are important to others, do they really continue to exist?  As a writer, the most important tool you have is your brain.  (If The Diving Bell and the Butterfly taught us anything, it's that our fingers are merely a vessel of truth.  Not the answer.)  So how do you cope with the wear and tear of your most important tool?  You have to preserve it in the moment.

I recently came to the realization that I have been out of college longer than I was in it.  When I entered college, it felt like the apex of life.  I moved far away from home.  I met new people.  And I had been programmed to believe that college would catapult me to the path I was sure to lead.

Throughout my college days, I began writing a screenplay entitled "The Twenty Year Old Virgin", a playoff of the Judd Apatow comedy with an emphasis on the pressures of losing your virginity at a young age.  As a woman who "became a woman" at 22, this idea meant everything to me.  I specifically remember "coming out" to my best friend that I was, in fact, a virgin on a bus ride home from a party one night because it felt like such a defining feature at 20.  And as a woman who has since sought validation in casual hook ups, the idea of finishing this screenplay seems odder and odder.

But memories are what dictate our future.  There's a reason we hang on to the people who fucked us over and the people who changed our lives.  It's because we need those memories to make ourselves better people in the present... and the future.

- I remember spying on my parents watching Alien when I was 5 years old because I happened to pick the moment when the alien bursts out of John Hurt's belly.  And I remember not sleeping very well that night.  But I have zero recollection of anything that happened before or after that moment.

- I remember choking on an ice cube I was sucking when I was a child, and the cantaloupe I threw up into our sink, but nothing before or after that moment.

- I remember my dad surprising me Saturday morning at our kitchen table because he travelled home through the night to see my stage debut in Little Women when I was 11, but I can't remember any lines from my show.

- I remember the smell of Quizno's subs seeping into my hair after shifts at my first job, but I don't remember how to make a single sub.

- I remember failing my first permit test - vividly the screen and the questions - but I don't remember how poorly I reacted to it.

- I remember vomiting on myself while giving blood during Calculus of my senior year of high school, but I don't remember how to find the derivative.

- I remember hopping on a boat with some strangers during the Taste of Chicago, guiding by an old man named Gordon who enlightened us on his Pagan ways, but I have no idea what the hell he was talking about.

I could go on, but you guys get my drift.  We have moments in our lives that carry significance, but at minimum, the best we can say about them is the moment.  Outside of that, we have to wing it based on experience.  I remember that my father who worked away from us for three years found his way home to see me perform in my first real show because he loved me.  And as a writer, I am forced to fill in the gaps that I don't positively remember.

The pain comes from realizing that there are some beautiful moments in your life that may pass.  And the only way to preserve them is via a photograph or the written word.

As we get older, days blur more into months.  Months into years.  And years into gaps of time that are harder to define.  A co-worker recently discussed a philosopher's idea of memory with me.  That when we are younger, time feels more marked because we have more to look forward to.  We have years in school that demarcate events.  I remember the Blood Drive Vomit Scandal of 2005 also happened in April, because I was a senior and it was the moment I realized my blood giving compatriot was who I wanted to ask to the upcoming prom.  But post college, the years blur together because we have less to associate with them.  The Pagan Boat Journey on Old Lake Mich happened, well, what?  I don't know.  Maybe 2010?  Maybe 2011?  Somewhere around there.

It's hard to believe college ended 5 years ago, because what has happened in my life since then?  A blur.  Whereas every moment of college carried weight.  Carried significance about the rest of my life.  But as we get older, we have to find our own significance.  Our own sense of worth.  It's no longer handed to us.  And hopefully with time, we can start to figure out how to manage our memories in a more efficient fashion.

But probably not.