21 February 2011

REAL

A recent tangle with a wildly popular romantic drama left me with a lot of thoughts concerning what's real and what's just not.

I've noticed that watching these movies or reading these books that women are supposed to like make me feel, well... weird.

The movie I watched most recently was this one...


Or if you don't recognize the movie by that picture, maybe this one will ring a bell...


Still drawing a blank? Here's another...

You get the idea. I'm sure you got the idea after the first picture, but there's a reason I posted all three. I'll get to that in a minute.

So, yeah, I guess it can be said that The Notebook is a special case sort of movie that falls in this category. Glenn Beck calls them "bonnet movies," but that's beside the point for now. Yes, it's different. It's raw, it's got a bunch of real-life issues, and it ends in a nursing home for Heaven's sake, but again, beside the point.

The only word that I could come up with to describe the movie was passionate. The whole movie was just nearly painful for me to watch because of how heavy it was with passion. I came away from the movie wondering at my own lack of passion...

Well, why don't I feel like that?

But why doesn't Hubby act like that?

What might things have been like if...?

Blah. Blah. Blah.

Oh brother. What a pitifully easy target I am, Satan... shoot me! Shoot me!

So, in all my thinking about movie vs. reality, I started sort of a mental list of things that either happen beyond the realm of real in these stories or things that are oh-so-present in the real, but are conveniently left out of pretend land.

That takes me back to the three redundant pictures and brings me to item numero uno:

1. Gravity. When was it? Maybe last week that my dear husband decided to "dip" me. No, we weren't dancing and I'm not sure why the urge hit him, but whatever the case I ended up on the floor. Forgetting to use your dominant hand when you decide to randomly "dip" your wife is real. Falling on the floor is real. Gravity is real. I'm guessing that if I decided I was gonna take a running leap into my man's arms, we would both hit the floor. Not graceful. Not wistfully romantic. No heart swelling. Just contusions. And maybe a sprain.

2. Laundry. Sigh.

3. Puking kids. Puke in movies is either only implied and never seen or played off as comical. The inevitable picking partially digested pepperoni and pickle pieces out of the carpet fibers is never really included. Human reproduction would probably come to a screeching halt if they showed these things in movies. Puke is real. Pickle pieces are real.

4. Extended and repetitive business trips. Only the heart-wrenching parting and/or the joyous/passionate/in-your-face airport PDA reunion is shown. The part where the transmission falls out, the basement floods, the dog has to be put to sleep, the kid fails his midterms, African termites attack the foundation while the husband is away... these things are omitted.

5. Any combination of #3 and #4.

6. Dishes. Unless, of course, the woman is at the sink and the man comes up behind her to nuzzle, tickle, pinch her tush, and otherwise distract her. Dishes are a part of everyday life, folks... not a segue to the bedroom. Baked on lasagna and boiled over chicken water are not turn ons. Have you ever seen boiled over chicken water on a movie? Chicken water is real.

7. Slobber. I'm sorry, but it just happens when you smooch with reckless abandon. Admit it, guys... and I'm not seeing too much drool involved in all the Hollywood tonsil hockey going on out there.

...

And as long as we've covered puke and drool, I might as well say where is the snot? There's a lot of tearfulness, but I've never seen a really ugly cry on a movie. I've never seen any snot. And for that matter, when are these people using the bathroom? Does the lack of gravity affect bodily functions?

I think I've reached the end.

What it boils down to is this...

Movies are not real. And even though I know this with my brain... kind of... there must be some part of something in there that doesn't really get it. Somewhere in my sinful, flawed, human brain, I hear that slithering whisper...

See how it could be?

Maybe not everybody is so susceptible to the power of suggestion, but I will admit that it's one of my weakest areas.

If you fall prey to these same sorts of things, consider with me the possibility of giving those things up.

Falling on the floor may not be uber romantic... but let's face it... it's funnier.

And falling on the floor seems a lot less dangerous than falling into temptation and putting your home on the chopping block.

---

The journey from your mind to your hands
Is shorter than you're thinking.
Be careful if you think you stand...
You just might be sinking.

It's a slow fade when you give yourself away.
It's a slow fade when black and white have turned to gray.
Thoughts invade, choices are made, a price will be paid
When you give yourself away.

People never crumble in a day.
It's a slow fade.

1 comments:

The Busey Family February 22, 2011 at 1:59 AM  

haha, love it. I have to reality-check myself whenever I get to thinking how awesome my life would be if....it wasn't real life!