Into a Routine

K is actually leaving Friday. I am going to see her a few more times before then, but I wish she was staying longer.

It is miserably hot here, and even worse in this little apartment, which seems to just hold the heat in. Things were fine with him yesterday. I still feel like he is holding himself back. I left his apartment again last night to come sleep at my apartment and he wanted to come with me. I let him. I guess for now I will just give it more time and see if anything changes. It has only been a day. But in any case, we've settled into what I imagine will be our summer routine--work during the day, eat dinner, watch TV or a movie, sleep.

We watched Princess and the Warrior last night. I like foreign films, but I don't watch them often because I'm not a huge fan of reading subtitles. Spanish movies are easier, since I barely have to read the subtitles with those--but I don't speak a lick of German. In any case, I liked it. Although, at times I felt like the filmmakers were bashing me over the head with symbolism. I prefer at least a little bit of subtlety. But generally it was different, well acted, well shot. My biggest issue was that for a film that bashes you over the head with symbolism in individual scenes, it was also kind of unclear if there was an overall point to the movie. Not that there really HAS to be one. I liked the emotional journeys that the characters took--even the minor characters were pretty well-developed--but I wasn't one hundred percent sure what, if anything, the filmmakers wanted the audience to take from the movie in the end. Maybe I will have to watch it again. I have a terrible habit of over-thinking movies. And books. And everything else.

I think I need to start reading for fun again. Now that the term is over, I have time. I just have the hardest time picking out a new book to read. I have the habit of re-reading my 6-7 go-to books: Baron in the Trees, The Godfather, The Stranger, The Hobbit (since I read it all in one night during a power outage in 3rd grade it has been a favorite), Pride and Prejudice (cliche, I know, but easy on the brain), the Virgin Suicides, and White Oleander. Each one really does something different for me. They are all good for different moods. I also have newer go-to books that I plan to re-read, but haven't quite had the chance yet--mainly The Lovely Bones. That is the last book I read that really grabbed me. I cried so many times while reading that book, for different reasons. I thought it was really beautiful. I am a bit nervous about the upcoming movie. But after I read it the first time, I knew that it would be added to my rotation. Unfortunately for me, I lent Virgin Suicides, White Oleander, and The Lovely Bones out. Even though I hardly ever get books back after lending them out, I can't help but want to share the books that I love with other people. In fact, the copy of Virgin Suicides that I lent out was my SECOND copy--I lent out the first and never got it back. I like to think that the people I lent them to loved them as much as I do and just quietly decided to keep them. I always just buy another copy when that happens. Maybe I will head to Borders sometime this week and pick out something new. I am in the mood for something like Virgin Suicides, White Oleander, or The Lovely Bones. Something beautiful.

I will also re-read Atlas Shrugged at some point. I am not sure if I liked it in the end, but I can say that one quote from that book got me through a very, VERY hard time in my life. I don't know why. It just grabbed me and helped me pull through. I always keep a copy of that quote in my room. It sounds crazy, that a quote could do that--but you know how things just speak to you sometimes? It is a little long, but it goes like this:

"She survived it. She was able to survive it, because she did not believe in suffering. She faced with astonished indignation the ugly fact of feeling pain, and refused to let it matter. Suffering was a senseless accident, it was not part of life as she saw it. She would not allow pain to become important. She had no name for the kind of resistance she offered, for the emotion from which the resistance came; but the words that stood as its equivalent in her mind were: it does not count--it is not to be taken seriously. She knew these were the words, even in the moments when there was nothing left within her but screaming and she wished she could lose the faculty of consciousness so that it would not tell her that what could not be true was true. Not to be taken seriously--an immovable certainty within her kept repeating--pain and ugliness are never to be taken seriously.
She fought it. She recovered. Years helped her to reach the day when she could face her memories indifferently, then the day when she felt no necessity to face them. It was finished and of no concern to her any longer."

Those words gave me strength when I needed it--more strength than I ever thought I could get from a book, or poetry, or a song, or anything that someone else produced.

Okay, enough rambling. I guess I was in a talkative (if writing on a blog is "talking") mood today. Time to channel that into my thesis.