Secret Origins, Part 23
My earliest memory of a movie theater is something that I’m not entirely sure if it’s real or not, set in a place that hasn’t existed in something close to four decades, and seems just a little too on the nose for comfort. And yet, it’s something that, to this day, feels fresh and clear in a way that many other memories from childhood never could — which, let’s face it, might be another sign that it’s not entirely true and never was.
I was, by some simple math, three years old or so. Maybe four? I think I was in the theater for The Cat From Outer Space, which is what I remember so clearly: the poster for the movie, which featured this orange cat and a flying saucer shooting a beam down towards the ground. I remember the smell of popcorn, too, even though I’m pretty sure that it would be at least a decade or so before I even tried popcorn for the first time.
(The smell of popcorn has always meant the movies to me, and it’s something that’s almost entirely disconnected from the idea of popcorn as something that you’d eat — or, for that matter, popcorn as anything other than that movie theater smell.)
What’s so weird about the whole memory is, even as I’m utterly convinced that it’s all about The Cat From Outer Space, there’s a lingering suspicion that, somehow, Star Wars is involved. The timing would work out; we’d be talking somewhere in the region of 1978, so Star Wars might have been on re-release, or maybe just sticking around a long time from its original release, but still — was I actually there to see Star Wars and I just remember a poster for The Cat From Outer Space? Were my parents the kinds of people who’d take me to Star Wars when I was four?
(My dad was, at least.)
I’m not entirely sure what my first movie was, but there’s something about it being sci-fi no matter what that feels oddly fitting, if somewhat cliched. I was always going to be myself, I think.
And Then She Said
Last week, as part of everything that was going on, I found myself forced out into the real world for more than simply groceries or a gentle walk for the first time in… honestly, quite a while, actually. (Months, certainly, but I genuinely couldn’t tell you how many — which might, in itself, give you an idea of how long it has been.) On the one hand, this is clearly a good thing; COVID and lockdown aside, there’s no reason for me to become any more of a shut-in than I already am, and it’s been so long since I interacted with people I don’t know that I’d genuinely forgotten that I like talking to people at times.
That said, I have apparently lost the ability to make small talk.
Small talk is an all-important part of interacting with the outside world; it’s the social grease that eases the wheels of conversation with strangers, and, I’ll be honest, it’s something that I had previously prided myself at being good at, or at least, not entirely shitty at. Those days, apparently, are long gone.
Whether it was the Lyft drivers that made sure I got to the vets, or the vet techs themselves as we walked around the block desperately trying to get Gus to pee while the small plastic tray was close to the clinic — he didn’t — I found myself depressingly unable to keep the small talk going without awkward pauses and overthinking my responses.
On the plus side, I’m not entirely sure this was just a problem on my part. Indeed, I’d hazard a guess that this is an endemic problem to the wider populace, all of us still in a mild recovery position from the last year or so. We’ve all been in our little bubbles, and not needing to make small talk, after all. Can you blame us for being rusty at it now?
And yet, as we think about the possibility of a post-lockdown world — even if the idea of a post-COVID world feels a little unlikely just yet — it strikes me that small talk is something I need to return to, sooner rather than later. If I can just remember how.
Take A Giant Step Inside
Wagwan
I am a creature of habit, ultimately. I pretend that I’m not, but I have an internal rhythm that’s tied to certain things happening at certain times — or, at least, in a certain order that I’ve come to expect from repetition and good faith. I know, when I wake up, how the next few hours of the day is likely to go, and to no small extent, I rely on that knowledge to get me started. There’s a security in the routine, and it’s something I’ve come to appreciate more and more as I get older.
As I said, I pretend that this isn’t the case on a quasi-regular basis. I am, after all, an intelligent and capable person who should be able to think their way through any wrinkles, in time or otherwise, when it comes to any particular subject facing me at any point of the day. Surely, I tell myself, I’m not married to just one idea of how to do things, some unwritten schedule or to-do list.
I tell myself that often, and then things like today happen, and I’m just reminded of who the real me actually is.
It’s not as if today was especially difficult in any meaningful way; it’s simply that my traditional schedule was thrown off entirely. One of the dogs needed to be taken to the vet for a check-up, but in order to prepare for that, he had to eat and have medicine three hours before the appointment — which translated into 6am. So, while I woke up at my usual time, I got up earlier, and also had to prepare to be out the house by 8:30 or so in order to be at the appointment at the right time.
By the time I got home after dropping him off, I sat down at the computer ready to do some work — half an hour later than usual, but that’s not that big a deal — but after 10 minutes or so of checking email, I got a call from the vet telling me that they were finished already, and could I pick the dog up…? Another hour or so later, I was back with the grateful dog, but it was 11:30 by the time I was able to sit in front of the computer again, meaning the morning was already gone… and so, it seemed, was my ability to focus.
So distracted by the blown schedule, I took lunch earlier than usual, hoping that food would help. If I tell you that it’s only now, hours later, that my head feels anywhere close to normal, that might let you know how successful that plan was.
Like I said: I am a creature of habit. When that’s lost, so is everything else, at least for a short while.
And In The End
Well, that was a bit strange.
You might remember, a couple of months ago, I ambiguously wrote about a work opportunity that I was particularly excited about that seemed, on the face of it, too good to be true, yet somehow was happening nonetheless. Two months later, I am almost giddy to report back: it was, in fact, too good to be true. I think.
The short version of what’s happened was this: In mid-May, I pitched something almost jokingly to an outlet that I really wanted to write for, only to find it accepted. I was given a deadline of a few weeks hence, and ended up writing it and handing it in early, excited for the opportunity that I had been given. And then… nothing happened.
I mean that: nothing happened. The story didn’t run, but I also didn’t get any edit notes. Emails I sent to the editor went unanswered. Literally, nothing happened. Perhaps they’re just very busy, I thought, as I did one of a countless number of other things to keep myself occupied — a theory that seemed borne out when, a month after I submitted the piece, I got a brief email from the editor telling me that she had it, hadn’t edited it yet (I suspect she hadn’t even read it, based on her wording), but would be getting in touch again soon if she had notes.
That email arrived a month ago; today, I figured that I might as well email and ask if there was an update, and there was: the email bounced back, accompanied by a message that the editor was no longer with the company, and I should email someone else entirely if I had any questions.
I emailed that person, of course, because I do in fact have questions: Will my piece ever run? Am I right in assuming that the idea (from the now-departed editor!) that the piece was a pilot for a potential series is now utterly dead? Was this just another surreal example of the unexpected ways in which 2021 is managing to lowkey kill my work ambitions?
Okay, I didn’t ask that last one, but still. But still.
I literally have no idea what the status of this whole thing is, at this point; maybe it’ll run, maybe it never will (in which case, I guess, I could just run it here). Nonetheless, I was happy for the few weeks in which I felt as if a small little work dream might be about to come true.
Pearly Whites
There is, as I’m sure everyone is well aware, a stereotype when it comes to British people and dental care. I’d complain about Austin Powers but I’m sure it goes back far further, although I’m not entirely sure where it got started — except for, of course, the fact that British dental care was (and may still be, for all I know) far from the best for a long time, as part of the proud British tradition with regards to healthcare, which can be summed up with the phrase, “You’re not really paying for it, so what do you expect?”
For sure, I have my own horror stories when it comes to dental care when I lived in the U.K., and those experiences — and the fact that I stayed away from the dentist for years after one such horrible time — are the cornerstone of the reasons why my own teeth are quite as shoddy as they are these days. British teeth are, to be blunt, a horror show, and mine are definitely part of the reality behind that unfortunate cliche.
The reason I mention this is because, while mainlining Love Island and Too Hot to Handle — both shows featuring young British people looking for love and/or fame via a dating show — one thing has popped up again and again, to the point where it’s become a minor fascination to me. Over and over, people ask each other, “what’s your type?” or “what are you looking for in a partner?” and the one constant in each and every answer is “good teeth.”
Everyone is looking for good teeth. Sometimes, it’s part of a shopping list of physical attributes. (Women, especially, seem to want “tall, gym, tattoos” and good teeth; it’s a trend, seemingly.) Sometimes, it’s the one physical attribute mentioned alongside a bunch of emotional traits. (“I want someone who can make me laugh, someone who’s open, and good teeth.”) Whatever the reason, it’s the one thing that everyone in the UK apparently agrees on: good teeth.
Just think: If the UK had better dental care decades ago, no-one would know what to look for on shows like this anymore.
Permanent Distraction
It turns out work is a true feast or famine situation right now; after a couple of relatively laidback weeks in terms of short-term, immediate projects, allowing me to work on the Secret Thing That I Should Probably Get Back To, No, For Real (not to mention, just after me writing about things being slow lately), I find myself surprisingly underwater in terms of other gigs that are needed right now.
It’s a good problem to have, I should clarify; just earlier this week, I found myself thinking about how good I’d be if it turned out that this week saw almost no freelance money come in, telling myself that this longterm project would pay off in… well, the longterm, and that I just needed to be patient and not stress about money. (This is, I should add, pretty much the mantra I’ve had this year since THR went away, mostly because if I stop and think about the money too much, I get twitchy.) Now, out of nowhere, I have a rush of gigs and find myself juggling to fit them all in.
The funny/strange part of it is trying to talk my brain into accepting what needs to be done and when. Today, for example, I got two different gigs that both needed to be handed in at the end of the day, which means that I needed to write them immediately. The problem being that my brain had already decided that it wanted to work more on the longterm project and had very little interest in anything else.
In my years of doing this job, I’ve developed a reasonable amount of tactics to push myself back on task, or at least find ways to get myself thinking about a particular topic when that topic is the very thing that I need to be thinking about. Unfortunately, those tricks work best when I’m not getting other messages about other jobs that have a tight turnaround that I should also be thinking about at that very moment.
…I should get back to what I’m supposed to be doing, shouldn’t I?
On-Camera Confessional
I’ve been watching a lot of reality shows lately; they’re fun and stupid in a way that’s both entertaining and relaxing after a day where my brain’s been going far too much, which is a pretty good definition of… every day for the last few weeks, really. It helps that Chloe is also really into them; it’s something that we do together, at once transfixed, horrified, and amused by whatever horror is unfolding on the screen before us.
Recently, we’ve been mainlining either dating shows like Too Hot to Handle or Love Island, or else catching up on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, and with the best will in the world, the collective effect of all three in such a concentrated period of time has been to make me feel especially old and frustrated.
Too Hot to Handle and Love Island, you see, are populated by young beautiful people continually making very bad decisions and having literally no sense of perspective — the former, especially, has people breaking down in tears because they can’t fuck for a month, which still has me speechless days after watching it. There’s a genuinely impressive lack of perspective on these shows, with the smallest thing treated as if it’s the most cataclysmic trauma imaginable; I know it’s as much the result of smart editing on the producers’ parts, but there really is a lack of perspective in the lives of these glamorous idiots that can only come from having been so lucky as to never having to have faced any real trouble on any appreciable scale.
That’s something that’s just underscored by Drag Race, which asks far more of its contestants — they have to sing, dance, lip sync, act, improvise, and make their outfits — and also has the sense to allow the various queens to comment on each other’s melodrama, reminding them (and the viewers) that some things really aren’t worth that amount of tears and/or anger. Drag Race feels as if it exists in an entirely different world from the other shows we’ve been watching — and, if you think about the lived experiences of each show’s casts, it pretty much does.
Ten Years Living In A Paper Bag
I’ve been in an unusual place with work for the last week or so, in part through necessity — I’m waiting for a number of responses before moving forward with things that need to be moved forward, and yes, that’s somewhat frustrating, thanks for asking — and in part through choice, because I’ve been taking care of something that’s been hanging over me for a few months now, and I went into it with the it’s about time mindset that proves to be very rewarding when you’re finally in the middle of it and it’s going well.
I’m talking in riddles because this is a thing that isn’t a thing yet, it’s essentially prep work for a project that might not even happen in the end, and I don’t want to jinx anything by talking out of turn just yet. Suffice to say, what I’m working on is a different kind of work than what I’m used to, requiring a different mindset that I’m still getting used to, and it’s… been a strange and rewarding experience, at least so far.
On the one hand, I’m working at a faster rate than I have been for some time — my daily word count is probably somewhere around what I was doing before COVID struck and my freelance work dried up, if not a little more, but that includes me reworking and deleting, then rewriting, work from the previous day or so — but the final goal is significantly further away than the average project I’ve been involved in, in ways that are at once thrilling and impossibly scary.
I’ve been working in the short term for more than a decade now — writing with the expectation that what I’m working on will see print (well, virtual print) that day or maybe a couple of days out at most. Even simply recalibrating so that everything isn’t quite as immediate makes everything I’m doing feel different, in such a way that it all feels brand new again. A change might not be as good as a rest, but apparently it can be recharging at the very least.