It’s the Little Things

Not that I need another reason to take time away from my already full schedule, or rather, I don’t need to add another profession to my already jam packed life, but I keep thinking I should be editing film or television for a living.

It started over twenty five years ago when my long time favorite movie “The Goonies” was released. I never saw the movie in the theatre. That’s a story for another day, but the first time I saw it, if I’m not mistaken, was with my friend Karen and the second it was over we both wanted to watch it again. I think we ended up watching that movie something like 27 billion times that year.

Or something like that. I used to keep an actual count but after this many years I completely lost track, and I suppose that’s not really tragic considering the number would probably make me feel tragic…

At any rate, the first time I saw the movie I noticed the first editing mistake I’d ever seen in a movie. Or at least the first very noticeable one that hit my radar on the first viewing. For those who haven’t seen this gem of a flick, first of all, HOW is that possible (???) and, second of all, run out right now, locate it in some format and then come back.

Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Now, for the rest of us who have probably seen this epic motion picture at least once or twice, you’ll know the scene that I’m referring to.

The gang gathers together over at Mikey Walsh’s house, Mom Walsh leaves with the jumpy housekeeper Rosalita, and everyone starts talking about the crap in the attic. As they pull down the stairs there is a jump in the film. The jump is almost imperceptible but the stairs are being shown opening from inside the attic and all of a sudden…blip! Up and then down they go. Its minute, like I said, most people never notice this.

But I did. First time I watched the movie it was like “hey, did you see that?”

I was hooked on picking out mistakes, and it started with “The Goonies”. Or, as Mikey Walsh would say “It all starts here.”

I haven’t seen the movie in ages (and now will surely watch it tonight over a couple beers) but off the top of my head I can think of a few editing mistakes or oversights that I noticed pretty quickly. After Chunk does the Truffle Shuffle the balloon that pops is a different color than the one that originally blew up, when the gang unrolls the map for Andy to play the bones there are char marks visible over the notes that weren’t there before (read the book [yes, I have that too]), at the end Data talks about the octopus with reporters but there’s no octopus to be seen (read the book), when they dump out the marble bag into Mom Walsh’s hand to reveal the gems she is then isn’t wearing nail polish, Jake Fratelli is singing when they kidnap Chunk but simultaneously smoking a cigarette in the side view mirror, when they smash the glass over the map they toss it off the frame but then Mikey pulls the map out from under glass…I think you get the point. There are a LOT and believe me I’ve pretty much caught them all.

So that level of dedication has led me to noticing all kinds of things in all kinds of movies and television shows over the last quarter of a decade. Stuff like:

• Time on a clock bouncing around (especially on a non-digital)
• Amount of liquid in a glass (especially dark stuff like wine)
• The length of a cigarette/ash
• The wardrobe of the character
• Stuff moving as if by ghosts (an example of this happened the other night watching “Royal Pains”, a show I love on USA Network. Character holding 2 magazine props in front of her but the back mag was not the featured one for the scene and in every other shot it was sticking up further than the front mag. So distracting!)
• Seeing equipment like mics enter the shot, or cameras reflected in glass
• Geographical mistakes (when the setting is said to be Boston but a palm tree is clearly visible, or something to that effect)

And that’s just the short list, watch television with me sometime and you’ll be amazed. A movie is even worse. Matt is always quite blown away when, on the first viewing of something, I utter an ‘ugh’ and ask if he just saw the so-and-so mistake. It might be a conservative estimate but approximately 100% of the time he says no.

Where would one even get a start in a career like this? I’m sure a double major in communications and film production would land you a fetching position with a film or television studio…fetch a coffee, mail, dry cleaning, etc. Maybe even after thirty years you could move up to the place where you get to talk to the assistant to the editor of the show!

Um, nah.  I think I’ll just keep my current day job(s) and continue to annoy my husband, family and friends with my insanely accurate mistake catches instead. And if they ever make the long discussed (but hopefully, please, please, please I BEG OF YOU, NEVER!) sequel to “The Goonies” I’ll be the one in the theater, whispering, “Ugh, did you catch that?”

Honesty

I keep wondering at what age a person is supposed to give up on youth. I don’t mean that young at heart feeling. I also don’t mean that notion that you’re invincible. What I mean is simply, youth. I suppose more fairly, the trappings of youth.

There was a time when my hips were curvy, my butt was round, my boobs were small and my hair was brown. I loved that time. I loved wearing low cut jeans and tight tops and I dyed my hair for fun. When it was blonde, that was my favorite.

And I would go out dancing. And I didn’t care if I got drunk. And there were plenty more times that I didn’t than when I did. And I was a good dancer. And I could move well. And I was good at having sex. And sex was fun. And it was with someone different a lot of the time. And I was usually sober.

So when I look back on those times why do I see it all compartmentalized into this little box of memories that I feel some morbid obligation to let go of now that I am not in the youth anymore?

Now I have extra weight on my hips. Now I can’t get low rise jeans to look right under my muffin top. Now I have a saggy butt. Now my boobs are two cup sizes bigger. Now all my tops are tight by accident. Now I dye my hair to cover the gray.

I still love to dance. And drink. And I still dance pretty well. I think. I haven’t been to a club in about six years. Young people go to clubs. Or single people. Or hot people. I am none of those things. Not in youth. Cute perhaps, especially every six weeks after the dye job. Not single. And my husband hates to dance.

He can though. He just doesn’t like to do it. Because he has the same issue as me. He misses not caring. He misses youth. And we have sex. And it’s fun. But it isn’t new. It isn’t different people. Well maybe for him. I never know which personality might show up on any given day.

Sucks to be Matt.

And I am overly influenced by what I see and what I read and what I listen to and what I feel and what I experience.

And I’m okay with that but I feel tired and cranky a lot. And I really dislike being tired. Or cranky. I guess what I see and read and hear is exhausted and grouchy.

Sucks to be me.

And every six weeks when I dye my hair I sigh because it is such a bullshit waste of time. In six more weeks I have to do it again. And I do because I miss youth. I miss a wrinkle free face. I miss fresh clean slates. I miss perky bum cheeks and hands with smooth skin.

Mine and my husband’s. But he’s still cute. But youth has left us both. Replaced by experience. Replaced by some kind of wisdom. And nothing is surprising like you don’t like artichokes. And nothing is awful like subscribing to different religious philosophies.

So do I just give up on caring about the loss of youth and embrace the gray, the sag, the elastic waist jeans, simply because I’m too tired to give a crap different?

I like to look good. Would I look any less good with a full head of gray hair and boobs that point in different directions? Would the world notice or only me? Aren’t I the one who matters? My positive self image should be the important part of the equation. Right?

So I still get dinner out at restaurants. And I still work out. And I still have sex. And I still laugh at comedy. And cry at tragedy. Sometimes.

And kiss Matt before we go to sleep. And put on make up to go to the grocery store. And I still try on cute outfits. And they don’t fit over my hips. And they make my butt look funny.

But I’m not ready to wear elastic waist jeans. Yet.

The Don’ts and Do’s

I titled this blog post what I did today because I fully intended to do a quickie prosy type write up on all the things I do and don’t miss about Boston after being in Arizona for a couple weeks now, but as I sit and look at the windows I have open at the bottom status bar of my monitor I feel the title is appropriate for a completely different ranting babble instead.

And that babble is: what the fuck is with all of the options for joining and why in the hell do I need or want to join them?

This of course comes as a direct result of being inundated of late by whisperings of the newest social media site Google+. Apparently it’s hot, so hot in fact that you have to get an invite from someone who’s already a member in order to join. Well whoopee doo.

At least that was my first reaction. Now I’m not so sure.

Am I special enough to have been sent an invitation to beta test this site? No, not so much. Probably because I don’t have a Gmail account. Which is also why, after inquiring of one of my teammates as to getting an invite, I still haven’t sent her anything. Because, just like joining yet another social networking site (read: portal of time suckage) I really honestly do not need yet another email to monitor too.

I have a plethora of emails already -- 2 company related, 1 personal and 1 strictly for my writing life -- not to mention that there’s Facebook mail too. If I have to add another email account, another social networking site (read: portal of time suckage) to learn and explore, is it likely that I’ll ever actually do anything else with my life?

The short answer of course is no.

The long answer isn’t as simple as a two letter word.

Social media, as everyone knows these days, is the place to be if you want to gain any exposure to any kind of market for anything. Attorneys have their own twitter following, you can ‘Like’ anything from coffee to celebrities on Facebook and let’s not discount the fact that I never would have known that July 15th had been ‘National bitch slap an idiot day’ had I not gotten the notification of the mass invite on that very same site.

I have a company page on FB and twitter. I have personal accounts on both as well. I have 3 blogs. I belong to countless other silly portals of stupidity all over the internet (I’m looking at you HUBPages and eZine). Hell, I think my MySpace page is even still floating around out there. But I think this whole idea of Google+ was literally just the straw that broke my keyboard’s back this morning.

If I don’t join early, like I did with Facebook, I won’t get the super shiny user name that I want and then 2 years from now when FB fades away like MySpace did I’ll be on the tail end of the new technology wave. I’ll be the equivalent of the virtual dinosaur.

“What do you mean you don’t have a Google+ account? I mean, how is that even possible? Don’t you write books and try to sell them? How are you still only promoting yourself with these archaic means like twitter when you could be on Google+?!!!?”

And then the second I join that it will be ‘Join the newest social media site Strawberry Fields! Everybody’s doing it!’ And so on, and so on until eventually I’m the only one streaking naked through the quad up to the gymnasium.

So where or when does it end? Again, the short answer is, it doesn’t. And that’s what makes me question the validity of joining this new social media site (read: portal of time suckage) in the first place.

But again that also forces me to repeat the question -- when then will I have time to do something with my life? The something that forces me to join all the “networking” sites in the first place? If I never actually find the time to write anything to sell it to someone, then what good is knowing all the someone’s going to do? No matter how many times I post status updates that I’m working on the book, trying to find an editor or rewriting my query all that does is take time away from dong the things I just said I was doing.

Catch-22 much?

You have to join to keep in front of the public but the public can suck so much of your time that you have nothing to publicize.

It stinks.

So for now I guess I’m going to keep my profile off of Google+ and simply keep on keeping on in the manner I’ve been going. I’m pretty sure that someday when I get a publisher / agent / editor who enforces a deadline they will thank me for it.