How iTunes really makes its money.

I like iTunes, a lot. It fulfills my musical instant gratification. I'm the type of person who instantly falls in love with a new song and listens to it on repeat for three days straight, and iTunes is very helpful towards that.

However, iTunes is also a constant source of frustration. When you go to look for a song, a specific song, you find that you are invariably faced with too many choices. I mean, this should be easy, right? You know what song you're looking for. And then, all of a sudden, there are covers, tributes, edits, the same song from different albums, etc. etc., and you can't even tell which *version* you're looking forward.

Invariably, I pick the wrong version.

This has happened to me twice recently. Two dollars for two songs, not a bad deal, true, but one version I will never listen to, as I've downloaded the wrong version of a song and had to, therefore, go back and get the right one. Shame on me. Instant gratification strikes back.

"Listen to this song - it will change your life, I swear."

I was talking to a friend a couple weeks ago, about my major and what I'm going to do after college, and I said something to the effect that I wanted to make movies that changed people's lives. And his reaction, well, it was almost like disbelief. I know that not everyone holds the view that film can be art. Lots of people think that it's just entertainment (the most powerful entertainment industry right now, but...). But I felt a little shocked, not only that my friend had never been moved by a film to the point where it helped shape his life, but that he seemed to think I was naive for believing so.

I have my doubts about this career. It seems pretty selfish sometimes. I have friends who are going to be doctors and nurses and missionaries, and I'm going to go play around in pretend worlds. But then I remember reading something in Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis, which is basically his spiritual autobiography. I don't remember what the exact passage is (even after trying to go back and find it several times), but he talks about how he was prepared for his conversion to Christian through all the books he had read, the ancient pagan myths and fairy tales alike, how his "imagination was, in a certain sense, baptized; the rest of me, not unnaturally, took longer." One of the greatest Christian thinkers of all times was prepared for his faith through the stories he heard.

I'm in love with the movie Stranger than Fiction. I've seen it three times already and I'm planning on buying it once I have a chance to get a cheap copy. I was watching it last night with about ten other people, and I realized that a writer and a filmmaker, the movie resonates differently with me. Kay Eiffel is a writer, and she wants to write the most amazing masterpiece of a book ever. Every writer wants to write a masterpiece. But there comes a time when she has to choose between her finishing masterpiece and therefore killing someone or changing the end of her book to save a life. And in the end she has a beautiful quote when replying to a professor about her book:

"[I]t's a book about a man who doesn't know he's about to die. And then dies. But if a man does know he's about to die and dies anyway. Dies- dies willingly, knowing that he could stop it, then- I mean, isn't that the type of man who you want to keep alive? "

If every movie I ever wrote was based on this core idea, I would be happy. If every movie I ever wrote was about love and sacrifice, the beauty in life inspite of the pain, the hope, friendship, family that redeems our lives, I would never regret picking this selfish career. If a movie can open a person's eyes up to the love in life and inspire them to actually live, isn't it worth three years of my life and eight of their dollars? Film has so much potential to show life as it is and as it should be. Imagine if the film industry became an industry that produced movies that had a real purpose. What if the industry could spread hope?

I know my life has been shaped by movies. Art restores my faith in people. When you get a chance to see truth, in no matter what form, you can't just ignore it. It would just be nice to know if other people felt the same way too.

Has anyone had a movie change their life?

I think you should

A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember the last thing that you said as you were leavin'
Now the days go by so fast

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think that I could be forgiven...I wish you would

The smell of hospitals in winter
And the feeling that it's all a lot of oysters, but no pearls
All at once you look across a crowded room
To see the way that light attaches to a girl

And it's one more day up in the canyons
And it's one more night in Hollywood
If you think you might come to California...I think you should

Drove up to Hillside Manor sometime after two a.m.
And talked a little while about the year
I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower,
Makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her

And it's been a long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they pass

And it's one more day up in the canyon
And it's one more night in Hollywood
It's been so long since I've seen the ocean...I guess I should

- "A Long December" Counting Crows

Unknown

This doubt is screaming in my face
In this familiar place
Sheltered and concealed
And if this night won't let me rest
Don't let me second guess
What I know to be real
Put away all I know for tonight
And maybe I just might
Learn to let it go
Take my security from me
And maybe finally
I won't have to know everything

I am falling into grace
To the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared
It's the unknown, the don't-know
That keeps me hanging on and on and on to you

I got nothing left to defend
I cannot pretend
That everything makes sense
But does it really matter now
If I do not know how
To figure this thing out

I am falling into grace
To the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared
It's the unknown, the don't-know
That keeps me hanging on and on and on to you

I am against myself again
Trying to fit these pieces in
Walking on a cloud of dust to
Get to you

I am falling into grace
To the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared
It's the unknown, the don't-know
That keeps me hanging on
And I am falling into grace
To the unknown to where you are
And faith makes everybody scared
It's the unknown, the don't-know
That keeps me hanging on and on and on to you

- Lifehouse

Um --

Why is it that art renews my faith in people? Shouldn't life be doing that?

Sometimes I wish I'd get into trouble just so that someone could rescue me.

I was hanging out in Borders for a little while the other week, and I picked up this book randomly called Post Secret. Inside were photos of postcards hundreds of people had made. On it they wrote a secret. Some were funny, some were shocking, and some were eerily familiar.

A couple days later I stumbled across this blog via Facebook (one of the reasons I love Facebook...): http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ It's the Post Secret guy's blog, and every week he posts new post cards people have sent him. He even holds events, which I would totally go to if there were one in our area.

So, I started wondering about what my post secret post card would look like if I made one. What it would say on it. And I had to figure out why this was so fascinating for me. Everyone has secrets, and usually, even when you learn someone's secrets, it doesn't affect you the way that these post cards resonated with me. And I think I have figured out why I am so enchanted with the post secret idea besides the fact that I love finding out secrets and I'm trying to work on better honesty in my relationships and life. I think it's because that when someone tells you a secret, usually what they tell you is the facts. When I was little, I did this. When you were gone this happened. Sometimes I think this. But these postcards don't just tell you what happened. They tell you how these secrets have changed the people's lives. How they're part of a person's psyche. What a person thinks about. These secrets could change someone's life. One of my favorites is a post card with a receipt stapled to it, and all it says is "If I don't get rid of this receipt, I'll call the number on the back and regret it."

There's this extreme honesty in these post cards that I don't feel even when I'm talking to people about secrets. You can still feel yourself or them hanging back from telling you exactly what happened. And giving you the facts of what happened, that's an easy way out because you're saying your secret, but you're not revealing it. But to say how it's affected you, why you did it, to show how it's changed your life or, in some cases, hasn't, the ways it's wrecked or helped your dreams. I don't know. Maybe someone else can say why these post secrets are so different.

I think I'm going to start writing my secrets down the way these post cards are written. I picked up my journal again for the first time since the summer. We were watching a movie in Spanish, and there's a boy who's an aspiring writer who's killed in a car crash. And his mother starts to read his journal. Someone is a completely different person in what they write, sometimes. I looked back at a couple of things I wrote over the summer, but I didn't really read a lot. There was one thing I wrote down that I wrote that was so blatantly truthful, it surprised even me. Sometimes I wonder, when I'm gone and I've left them to whoever, my children maybe, what they'll think when they read them. I got to know someone through reading what they left behind. Will they be surprised? Will they wish they had known me better? Will I make them feel like it's ok to be as broken as ever is but no one ever says they are?

Do you think everyone wants to know the truth? I don't think so...

(I'd Go the) Whole Wide World

When I was a young boy, my momma she said to me:
There's only one girl in the world for you
And she probably lives in Tahiti
Or maybe in the Bahamas
where the Caribbean sea is blue
Weepin' away in the tropical night
because nobody's told her 'bout you

I'd go the whole wide world
I'd go the whole wide world
just to find her
I'd go the whole wide world
I'd go the whole wide world
to find out where they hide her
YEAH!

Why am I hanging around in the rain out here
Tryin' to think of a girl
Why are my eyes fillin' up with these lonely tears
When there's girls all over the world?
Or is she lying on a tropical beach somewhere
Underneat the tropical sun
Hiding away in the heat wave there
Hopin' that I won't be long?

I'd go the whole wide world
I'd go the whole wide world
just to find her
I'd go the whole wide world
I'd go the whole wide world
to find out where they hide her

YEAH!

I'd go the whole wide world
[repeat to fade]

- the Monkees

I'll make you a deal...

Let's only worry about today.

Let's focus on what needs to happen today, only today, how we're going to get through it, and let everything else wait until tomorrow. Sure, there's a lot of stuff that needs to get done, but it's just not going to happen today. So I'm hereby releasing you from all of tomorrow's concerns: the taxes, the Nicholls competition, summer plans, even the missing cell phone. For twelve hours, no thinking about them. There's not enough time for them today. It's ok. Because tomorrow really isn't all that far away...

"I brought you flours."

Harold Crick: Dave, can I pose a somewhat abstract, purely hypothetical question?
Dave: Sure.
Harold Crick: If you knew you were gonna die, possibly soon, what would you do?
Dave: Wow, I don't know. Am I the richest man in the world?
Harold Crick: No, you're you.
Dave: Do I have a superpower?
Harold Crick: No, you're *you*.
Dave: I know I'm me, but do I have a superpower?
Harold Crick: No, why would you have a superpower?
Dave: I don't know, you said it was hypothetical.
Harold Crick: Fine, yes, you're really good at math.
Dave: That's not a power, that's a skill.
Harold Crick: Okay, you're good at math and you're invisible. And you know you're gonna die.
Dave: Okay, okay. That's easy, I'd go to space camp.
Harold Crick: Space camp?
Dave: Yeah, it's in Alabama. It's where kids go to learn how to become astronauts. I've always wanted to go since I was nine.
Harold Crick: You're invisible and you'd go to space camp?
Dave: I didn't pick invisible, you picked invisible.
Harold Crick: Aren't you too old to go to space camp?
Dave: You're *never* too old to go to space camp, dude.

- Stranger than Fiction

What happens when you are?

I know you're not supposed to be jealous when God works things out for other people, but...

I Like NL Study Night, but It's a Myth

We're really just kids still.

Where I work, it's an office with a bunch of nice, older ladies. And I feel awkward there sometimes, because I don't know how to relate to some of them. Like they don't relate to me the way they do to the other women in the office. I don't know if it's because I'm a temp and I'm still learning or if it's because I'm young.

I found out one of my friends from Anderson just got engaged. It's cool; I'm happy for her. I realized that almost everyone I know who is still with the person they were dating freshman/early sophomore year, is either engaged or married. And then this weekend my two best friends were talking about their plans about engagement and marriage. And they're going to be seniors next year. College is almost over, what?

Sometimes I feel like we're just pretending to be grown up. Like, we still get excited about sleep overs (though my friends say we'll still have them, we'll just talk about different stuff). There are still times when I'm like, gee, I just want my Dad to handle this. I don't know. Maybe it goes back to the fact that I have no idea what's going on. I'm still learning about life. I can't even pretend that I have it together, like those grown ups do.

I like sleepovers and twizzler straw Sprite movie nights with my friends, staying up until 400 am, singing camp songs, standing up for 30 hours, listening to sappy songs and thinking maybe movies can change your life, figuring out life, love, the universe, everything.

I played MASH the other night. Haven't done that since high school. It was fun. I'm 21 years old, and I'm ok with acting like it. Which means I'm a little bit grown up. But not quite all the way. : )

Everything's a secret

Ever wonder why you do the things you do? Sometimes I go more on feeling than on reasons. Like, I may not have it nailed down exactly, but it's a cool feeling when you know that this thing, this one thing, you *know* is the right thing to do. Even if you don't know why.

On the other hand, sometimes the things I do for the right reasons don't have the best outcome...

I don't know what I'm doing this summer yet. And it's coming up in like three weeks. And I have a lot of options and within the next couple of weeks I'm going to be pursuing them and figuring them out and such, but I don't know where I'm going to be next month. Sorta like when I decided to go to England. It just sorta happened, all within a two week period, for the next month.

You know what's cool? Being ok with not knowing. I mean, as a general life rule, you should know *some* things about what you want and where you want to go and why you're doing what you're doing. But I don't know what I'm doing half the time (maybe I know the why and not the what. Confusing, right?). I don't know if I'm making the right choices and if they're going to produce the right results. And I could worry about it, and freak out all the time (well, I do do that), but in the end I'll make the same choice as I would have in the first place, without knowing anymore about what's going to happen. There's something beautiful in not knowing what's going to happen next. It could be bad, it could be good. It probably will be unexpected. This is the part of beauty of life, I think. Making the right choices and not knowing what will happen next. Not knowing if tomorrow's going to ruin your life or save it.

My sister says I'm only 21 and I can't ruin my life yet anyway. I can't try to claim that until I'm 40.

Outside the window the trees are starting to blossom, and it's snowing. And today when the question "What's going on?" flirts through my mind, I have to smile. Because I don't have an answer.


Ever close your eyes
Ever stop and listen
Ever feel alive
And you've nothing missing
You don't need a reason
Let the day go on and on

Let the rain fall down
Everywhere around you
Give into it now
Let the day surround you
You don't need a reason
Let the rain go on and on
-Enya

In the Spirit of Last Night

I can't be losing sleep
over this, no I can't
and now I cannot stop pacing
give me a few hours
I'll have this all sorted out
if my mind would just stop racing

cause I cannot stand still
I can't be this unsturdy
this cannot be happening

this is over my head
but underneath my feet
cause by tomorrow morning
I'll have this thing beat
and everything will be back to the way that it was
I wish that it was just that easy

cause I'm waiting for tonight
and then waiting for tomorrow
and I'm somewhere in between
what is real and just a dream
what is real and just a dream
what is real and just a dream

would you catch me if I fall out of what I fell in
don't be surprised if I collapse
down at your feet again
I don't want to run away from this
I know that I just don't need this

cause I cannot stand still
I can't be this unsturdy
this cannot be happening, yeah

cause I'm waiting for tonight
and then waiting for tomorrow
and I'm somewhere in between
what is real and just a dream
what is real and just a dream
what is real and just a dream
what is real and just a dream

- "Somewhere in Between," Lifehouse

Standing on a road, Holding a burning match

If I had a super power, I would slow time. I wouldn't want to be able to speed it up or travel around in it, because I have this feeling that would get terribly complicated. Just slow it down. And be able to take people with me.

I used to have weird issues with time. I still do to some extent, but I'm getting better. I used to look forward sooo much. Now I'm much happier to live in the moment. In fact, the moments go by too fast. I don't get to appreciate them, I don't get to rest in between them, I don't get to think about them.

I miss reading for fun. I'm making time for it now, bringing scripts with me to meals and on the bus ride to work. It's so relaxing. I don't make time to write. Maybe that's why I'm up at 2:00 AM posting on my blog. If I could slow time, I would be able to do all my work, hang out with my friends, and get a decent amount of sleep. What a wonderful super power.

Really, I just want to be able to freeze time so I can think. I'd like to freeze everything and go sit somewhere with a pen and a journal and just *mull* life over. Sometimes I feel like I don't even know *what* I'm thinking, just that I have all these thoughts in my head that need to be considered. I'm just contemplative with things that I *know* are important, but I never really think about them. I can't even write about what I'm feeling. It hasn't congealed into a coherent thought yet.

I wish I could slow time. Freeze everything just to breathe.

Nothing in my Way

A turning tide
Lovers at a great divide
why'd you laugh
When I know that you hurt inside?

And why'd you say
It's just another day, nothing in my way
I don't wanna go, I don't wanna stay
So there's nothing left to say?
And why'd you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don't know what you lie for anyway
Now there's nothing left to say

A tell-tale sign
You don't know where to draw the line

And why'd you say
It's just another day, nothing in my way
I don't wanna go, I don't wanna stay
So there's nothing left to say
And why'd you lie
When you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don't know what you lie for anyway
Now there's nothing left to say

Well for a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you're having such a nice time
You're having such a nice time

For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you're having such a nice time
You're having such a nice time

- Keane

My computer lives again :)

Jenna Falconeri, Darlene, and Me, c. 1999