"This is just like something in a movie!"

Do you ever feel like your life is a low-budget, highly artistic, fascinatingly unpredictable indie film?

I do.

It felt like that one morning last week, when I was awake before the sun and wouldn't get to go to bed until long after the sun retired. Stupid, lazy sun.

I remember sitting there thinking, "What is this, who put me here in this life, and why do I feel like I have a camera watching me and Ben Folds is playing the keyboard for the soundtrack as I tie my shoes?"

Do you ever feel like that, like your life isn't something that you asked for? It's just something you were thrown into? Because a character in an indie film doesn't ask for it either. The writer never checked with her to see if she was okay with being gently but pointedly mocked, her facial expressions becoming more and more animated as her emotions develop and expand as the story develops and expands.

One of my favorite scenes in the film is the one where I'm sitting at the counter in the coffee shop and I'm holding a latté with perfect foam, and I'm looking out at the sunshine-drenched and people-filled street, and I'm hearing my favorite song, and you can tell I'm a regular because all the baristas and even some of the other customers know my name. And I have the look on my face that says "Yes, I am here, and this is the right place for me to be, and I know it."

Life feels like an indie film when I'm in my kitchen. I'm standing there barefoot, wondering about life and where it's taking me, and I'm wondering what kind of love story, job story, college story, life story, that I'll get to tell my kids. In the film, the editor would cut to a shot of the happy ending of the story I'm imagining - in that scene, I'm not baking for my dad, but for my kids. Or better yet, my kids are baking for their dad, and I get to tell the story of how we met. I get to tell them about my college experience, about the amazing life I was given. Then the director would have the scene go back to me, the barefoot one, wondering in the kitchen.

Some moments feel too perfect to not be part of a script. They're not always the moments with the plot twist, or a radical change in the tone of the narrative, but they're beautiful because they explain more about the character.

It's when the two close friends show up wearing the same sweater and find out that their parents have the same wedding anniversary. It's when she runs into an old friend. It's when they play basketball and he doesn't let her win because he knows she hates that. It's when the perfect shoes are purchased. When he finally cries, when she offers a hug because she can tell that everything isn't fine. When she walks into a door because good Lord, he is distracting. The moment the letter is written, when eye contact is made, when a song starts, when the letter is received.

And maybe life actually is a film, because really, what is a film other than a story that people watch? Maybe the only difference is that real life doesn't end with credits rolling on a black screen.  


(Maybe it's just because I finally got my spot in the library back, or because I'm paying too much attention in Film or English class, or because my hair is up ballerina-style, but this is what I needed to write today. Sorry that it's a little disjointed and emotional and maybe a tad pretentious.)

What I couldn't post on Kaitlyn's wall about a feminist book from the 1980's

(This was originally a post on my friend Kaitlyn's wall on Facebook, but Facebook took one gander at it and said "PSH, we don't allow rants that long!" and I was too lazy to edit it down, so I'm posting it here. It references a book from the 1980's that is, in my and Kaitlyn's opinion, absurd. It's called The Cinderella Complex, and it's by Collette Downing. If you've read it, or have something to say after you read about it here, let me know.) 

So.... I didn't want the book back.... like..... really.... because it just sits there staring at me, like it's daring me to read it, but I can't, (a. because I literally don't have time, (b. because even if I DID have time, reading it would just make me angry, and I don't have extra energy to be angry.
But it still stares, it looks, it addresses my soul directly with it's thin browning pages, and it says "Excuses."
Because it would like to persuade me that by my act of putting it down before I finished it - it won. It's trying to build up the argument that not finishing the book makes me narrow minded and unwilling to hear other opinions or change my mind.
I don't want it to win, but I can't sit there and fill my mind with what she says, because she is like poison to intelligent thought. She is like cardiac arrest or a hangman's noose to my mind, and yet she has me at an impasse.
I'm at an impasse with a BOOK from the 1980's, and I just wrote almost two hundred words about it.

About that whole LOSING MY MIND conversation....

I'm grumpy about going to school so that I can get my masters so I can go to school for the rest of my life. As a teacher, but still. School. Forever. And I'm actually excited about it.

Oh hi, irony, good to see you.

I'm sitting (hiding) in my favorite spot in the library because I'm rad like that, and I have two and a half hours between classes. There's a perfect little couch facing a huge window that gets sun in the morning in this little alcove that's quiet but not too quiet, and always has great art on one wall. The only problem is that, on the other wall, the one behind me and hanging directly above me, there's a painting of a naked woman. I'm not looking at it so it doesn't bother me, but I'm sure it's slightly disconcerting for anyone walking by. I think it's funny though, so you won't find me in another spot.

--------------------

I've already argued with a professor, which was a great tip off (not kick off, because I would rather use basketball phrases than football ones)  to this term.

--------------------

While I've been sitting here, trying to think of clever things to say about school that everyone else hasn't already said, clouds have moved in and blocked out the sun.

If I believed that everything was a sign, I would assume that the clouds mean that change is coming in my life, and the best way to handle it will be to sit and watch and enjoy it. Eventually, though, I'll have to walk out and actually experience the change, I can't just sit and watch it forever. It may alter the way I live my life, but I'll still be fundamentally the same person. The change will effect the people around me, as well - in different ways. Some will enjoy it more than others.

Dang, maybe I should believe everything is a sign. I'd rather think that than just go walk in the rain.

A single 18 year old's thoughts on marriage. Yes, you can laugh.

Many of you have probably heard my über rational and practical plan to marry my mechanic.

Writing this feels somewhat awkward because I’m currently sitting in the office of his shop, and he’s standing about three feet away.

But I digress.

The plan exists (a. because my car is a piece of crap, and it would really save me insane amounts of money to be married to someone who would HAVE to fix it for free, and (b. because it feels safer to have an option that I can control. I mean, all I would have to do is bring in a batch of my cinnamon rolls and say “HEY, so I make these, and also killer peanut butter brownies, and you already know my name and have spent almost as much time in my car as I have, so let’s just get hitched.” and he would say, after trying the cinnamon rolls, “Yeah, alright.”  And we would just go on like that, him fixing cars and me teaching and him fixing my car (for free) and me driving it.

Now, all of you romantics out there are probably starting to hate me right about now. You’re probably disgusted that I say getting married simply because it’s practical is a viable option. You’re probably starting to think that I don’t believe in marriage or love or soul mates.

The thing is, I DO, I just don’t believe it’s a given. I don’t believe it’s one of those things you can simply EXPECT to happen.

Because if you’re not planning on marrying someone for completely sensible reasons, you’re probably planning on falling in love with someone, which assumes that someone will fall in love with you.

And it just seems a little narcissistic to me to saunter around thinking “Uh huh, so someday someone is going to fall so in love with me that they’re going to want to spend the rest of their life with me, and make me the most important person in their life. Oh, and also buy me roses.”

I’m sick of the world taking marriage and love for granted.

So I don’t anymore. I just trust that either love will happen, like magic, or that my mechanic will really like cinnamon rolls.

----------------------

Actually, there’s a plan C, too. That’s the one where I don’t ever get married, I just teach for a while and save money so that I can adopt a little boy from Africa, and he will be 6‘9” and play basketball for Rajon Rondo when he is coaching the Chicago Bulls.

Thoughts: ready set go.

I'm tired of getting the "You don't update your blog!" often enough crap, so I'm posting this.

The end.
....
........
...
...



....
...
..

.
.....
..

Just kidding, I'm not really that much of a jerk. Most of the time.

So, some thoughts.

I bought a red t shirt today, almost exclusively so that I can wear it with my black skirt and say "GO BLAZERS!" while winking on game days.

I wore flip flops in the rain today, and it made me feel more like a real Oregonian.

I also cleaned out my car.

I made a batch of homemade, from scratch, straight up brownies before 8am. And then I put on a skirt and flats and went to breakfast with two of my closest friends.

And I keep thinking: I don't deserve to have it this good. Really, I don't. But all I can do is try to live as gratefully as I possibly can.

So lately, as I'm sure you've noticed, I've been writing more and more about myself, which is rather odd. It's odd because I went probably 15 years without talking about myself much at all, because I'd decided that letting people get to know you is scary, so I just let people think what they wanted. Now I can't shut up about myself, which is probably a bad thing.

But that's what blogs are for, right?

And it's also odd because I've been told several times lately that I'm mysterious, hard to understand - an enigma.

The only way I can respond to that is to say that I'm good at answering questions. If there's something you want to know, you have to ask. I can't read minds (yet). So if you're ever with me, or stalking my Facebook profile *cough*MATHLETES*cough* and you think to yourself: "Man, Jazmin doesn't make any sense at all. I wonder ______?" just ask the question.

Or else I'll be left writing these lengthy, rambling, slightly narcissistic blogs.

And if you thought that was the closing statement, you were wrong!

I'm very opinionated, but I don't expect or even WANT everyone to agree with me. As long as someone has reasons for their opinion, I'm okay with people thinking differently than I do. All I want is for people to THINK.

I'm on a biographical/non-fiction/indie book and film kick lately. I like things that tell real stories, that mean something.


And I have too short of an attention span to ramble any longer. I'll be posting more often, I promise. I also promise that they won't all be this pointless.

North wind: you can stuff it.

A friend once told me: "I feel like you're never in one place at once, like you're never just there. You're always on your way to somewhere else."

And, at that time, it was true.

I've always been bad at staying in one place, at sitting still, at putting down roots. I don't get too attached to a group or any single person and I don't show up 100% of the time.

I float, I meander, I wander, I go on adventures.

But I don't stay.

Because to stay means to commit. It means being content and it means deciding that there is no where else you would rather be.

And sometimes, it means accepting that you're in the right place. And that you need to hang out there for a while.

And I think maybe, just maybe, that's what I need to do.


(By the way, the title of this blog is a reference to Chocolat, one of my favorite films. If you get it, I love you.)