resolutions, notes, film

Have officially lived on the East Coast for over four years.

Must strive to reverse undesirable New England habits, including, but not limited to: not smiling at strangers on the street, deferring to awkwardness, inability to hold eye contact, expecting anyone who works a cash register to have a terrible attitude.

Meanwhile - allow conversations to transpire without first mentally projecting their course. Try to judge others a little less harshly when it often seems to be the path of least resistance. Remember that generosity is better unacknowledged than unpaid. 

The past few months have been dedicated to more movies than books. It’s a bit frightening to project so much of life on arbitrary works of supposed art (or perhaps it’s the other way around). There’s something comforting, or even unsettling, in finding a filmmaker, an artist, a writer, etc. who sees the world on the same uneven axis as yourself. And you realize - you’re not alone. Even if you’re sitting alone on your couch, eating an apple, engrossed in situations which simultaneously have everything and nothing to do with you.

Last month, I went to a Rachael Yamagata concert with @questionablepearls. The concert was wonderful, but also a culmination of many years of listening to her music under the most varied circumstances. Perhaps the most memorable is sitting outside the counseling office of LSMSA in Natchitoches a week or so after Katrina with a few displaced friends, wondering where I’d even be by this time next month. A girl from my high school in New Orleans approached me. She looked at my iPod and made a comment about Rachael Yamagata. It was probably a thirty second conversation. But skip to December 2011, and there the song is. The same as ever.