ME TODAY

This started out as an email but then I started babbling away so I figured, oh what the heck I'll blog it.

I'm not gonna tell any of you that RENT (the movie or the musical) should be put on your must-see list and that you have to like it. I honestly didn't think much of the musical when I saw it 6 years ago, maybe because I didn't catch a lot of dialogue/lyrics. I thought it was about a lot of pretty worn out issues: 1) finding and then hanging onto identity 2) drug-use 3) life-threatening disease 4) the starving artist 5) carpe diem, blah blah. I liked it because the music was more contemporary compared to the classics (i.e. Miss Saigon, Les Mis and Phantom). I really didn't enjoy it so much for the content, but more so because they have a band on stage for crying out loud in lieu of an orchestra. That's cool!

Anyhow, I guess 6 years (that's 525,600 minutes times 6 - he he he...) is enough time to let naive experiences marinate in reflection until they're ready to roast in adulthood. I wasn't THAT crazy about the musical because I didn't relate to it back then, but I do now, more than ever. The movie is still about all the same things I thought were cliche back then, but which I find most valuable about it now: it's profound simplicity. No mistaken identities, no love torn apart by war, no haunting melodies heard through a magical mirror. It's a story about 8 friends who, while trying to survive a life they neither asked nor prepared for, find breath and respite in the face of death.

There's one part that really smacked me in the face - literally. Roger, a struggling musician, tells his roomate Mark, pseudo-writer-filmaker: "Who are you to tell me what I know? What to do? But who, Mark, are you? 'Mark has got his work.' They say, 'Mark lives for his work' and 'Mark's in love with his work.' Mark hides in his work...from facing your failure, facing your loneliness, facing the fact you live a lie. Yes, you live a lie - tell you why. You're always preaching not to be numb when that's how you thrive. You pretend to create and observe when you really detache from feeling alive....For someone who longs for a community of his own, who's with his camera, alone?"

It's all just making me think again. What's all this about? What am I doing? Blogging, taking writing classes, journaling - for what? What am I looking for? Waiting for? Am I any good at this? And who gets to justify my ability or potential? A magazine? A publisher? An editor? Am I seizing THE DAY? Or waiting for it? Holy shit, I'm fighting with reality (or what I think is my reality) and destiny (at least what I hope is my destiny) AGAIN. I hate when I do that. I think I'll just...belt out a Kelly Clarkson song in the shower, compose a corny poem or write a longwinded journal entry...