my tryst with mr. stench

I know I've been completely slacking on my blog for the last few weeks, but I have a bunch of posts in my head, just waiting to be typed. But first I need to get this one teeny little thing out into the blogosphere:

I SAW JOHNNY DEPP LAST NIGHT.

Yes, that's right my friends. And furthermore?

I TOUCHED JOHNNY DEPP'S JACKET LAST NIGHT.

They're filming scenes from his new movie Public Enemies at my old stomping ground, Crown Point, Indiana. The movie is about the FBI and John Dillinger, who - in case you were born under a rock or don't share my macabre affinity for mob history - killed a police officer in a bank robbery and escaped from the "escape-proof" Lake County Jail supposedly by using a carved wooden or soap gun. He hopped in the sheriff's brand new car and drove away, causing J. Edgar Hoover to proclaim him Public Enemy #1.

Anyway, I've been up there every night since Saturday, and my dedication finally paid off last night when I got close enough to take some pictures and almost shake his hand. He turned at the last minute, which resulted in me just touching his coat. In my five hours standing at the crowd barriers on the set, I had become friends with the girl next to me, and when she saw I had just missed shaking his hand, she let me touch hers after she was done shaking his. Thanks, Amanda, where ever you are - you're probably going to heaven for that.

The set is so cool. Well, I've only seen the outdoor set, but it's still cool! They laid fake cobblestone, and there were some old-timey cars lining the streets. It was cool to see all the actors in their period costumes, too. This afternoon, they sprayed everything down with fake snow to film the outdoor stuff - but my stupid job got in the way of seeing that. It's just so incredible to see the way that stretch of town has been transformed. Even standing in the middle of a throng of screaming teenagers, it was still so easy to imagine I was in the 1930s.

I can't decide if I should go back tonight or not. It's gotten progressively more crowded every night, and since I already got my pictures and copped a feel, I don't see much sense in standing outside in the cold again. Although, it's 50 degrees outside right now, when I was wearing two shirts, a winter coat, and two pairs of gloves last night. Bitchin', Mother Nature.

I really can't wait for this movie to come out. I've always had a strange fascination with all things gangster/mob/mafia related, and growing up so close to Chicago, there was always some cool artifact or historical building to visit on the weekends. I spent a lot of time at the old Lake County Jail, actually, poking around things, dreaming about John Dillinger and desperately searching for some evidence of his existence in my small town. Eventually, I grew out of it, also known as When Becky Finally Made Some Friends And Stopped Being a Freak.

If I had the chance of running into Johnny Depp back then, I think I would have been much more reluctant to trade a hobby for a social life, though.

And, sidenote/rant: Roughly 90% of the crowd at the set on any given day is approximately 16 years old or younger, coming out for the chance to get a good look at Captain Jack Sparrow, Sweeney Todd, Willy Wonka, or Edward Scissorhands. I couldn't help but wonder if the titles Blow, Sleepy Hollow, or The Ninth Gate meant anything to them. Had they ever even heard of Fear and Loathing or Gilbert Grape? Benny & Joon? Platoon? Even the first Nightmare on Elm Street?!

More importantly, do the words "twenty-one jump street" mean absolutely nothing to today's youth?! Am I wrong to still consider 21 Jump Street one of the best police crime dramas ever created? Does it mean I'm old that when I hear people say "too cool for school" I automatically think of that show? Please tell me I wasn't the only girl who considered getting involved in something bad in school so that the dreamy Officer Hanson would come frisk me.

there really is always room for jello.

Remember that cute scene towards the end of Jurassic Park I where Tim and Lex Murphy are taken back to the main building and they start digging into the buffet feast? And then a velociraptor sneaks up behind them in silhouette? And Lex has a big, fat spoonful of green Jello, and she starts shaking because she's scared?

When my brother and I were kids, we used to always act out that scene every time our mom made something for dinner that required the use of a spoon for eating. We used to hungrily shovel spoonful after spoonful into our mouths, periodically smiling broadly at each other between mouthfuls. Then, without warning, one of us would pause right before the spoon entered our mouths, and the smile would slowly fade off our faces. Our hands would start shaking wildly, always ending in whatever we were eating falling off our spoon and splattering back onto the plate. We would cackle in laughter - our parents so stunned to see us getting along and laughing at a mutually innocent antic that they just ignored the mess. And then we'd do it again, each time the smiling and shaking getting more and more dramatic until our food was flung off our spoons before it got anywhere near our mouths.

I used to love green Jello, and I ate it rather frequently. (That's what you're left with when you have a family who loves to serve holiday cakes and pies for dessert, but you're not really a big sweets fan.) Every time I ate it, I thought of my brother and I acting like idiots at the dinner table and cracking up about it. I haven't eaten green Jello in years, but when I saw that AMC was playing Jurassic Park I tonight, I knew I had to watch just long enough to get to the legendary food scene. I tuned in pretty close to the beginning, but I decided to watch the whole thing because it really is a great movie - let's be honest. For over an hour, I sat on my couch with a huge smile on my face, just anticipating the hilarity to come. It felt like those days leading up to Christmas when the end of school was in plain sight, you knew your parents had already started shopping and those gifts were hidden somewhere in the house, and you could almost taste that turkey and those mashed potatoes.

And finally the scene came. And then it was over. And I seemed to remember it being a lot longer and more important - a lot more dramatic. But I guess it's just one of those things that you glorify as a child... something you build up to such unattainable standards that even the real deal can't hold a candle to your imagination.

But that's okay. Because it's only about forty days until Easter, and I'm going to ask my mom to make me some green Jello for dessert. And I'm going to resurrect that old gem for my brother, and we're going to cackle and repeat it over and over again until it's larger than it ever was before. And then it'll be ours again.

Still hopeful, through it all

Since I saw the new Harry Potter movie last Wednesday, I've been wanting to write about it. But how does one begin a story detailing the biggest disappointment of her life? So I decided to wait, hoping that a short time would clear my mind.

It did not.

I hated that movie. Really - from deep inside, I despised it. I had tried so hard to go into the experience virginal, without having read a single review or listened to a single friend's account. Then, a mere three hours before showtime, I broke. I listened to a friend's negative opinion and did a quick Google for reviews. Instantly, my shoulders sank with the first headline: "New 'Harry Potter' Loses the Old Magic."

When I think about it now, I went into the situation expecting more than was humanly possible to deliver. Nothing that any director could have created would have lived up to my standards for this movie. I know it sounds silly, but the book The Order of the Phoenix is very special to me. Not only is it my absolute favorite book in the series, but it affects me in a way that very few books can - it just gets to me. I'm not even being dramatic, here... this book is very important to me. Needless to say, I was anticipating the movie to be just as incredible.

Within the first half hour, I was ready to leave the theater. Then I reminded myself that there's no way the movie could include everything from the book - but so far the basics were the same. A little more than halfway through, though, something in the movie was so drastically different than the book that I felt anger rise from my throat. I watched the rest of the film with a scowl on my face.

Last Saturday, I went to see it again. After my initial anger faded into disappointment, I realized that I had gone into that theater expecting to see the movie that played out in my mind each time I read Phoenix... which is way more times than I'm willing to admit to anyone. I stealed myself for any comparison to the book - I forced myself to think of the movie as an independent being with characters that just happen to have the same names. By the end, I wasn't nearly as angry as I was days before, but I still didn't enjoy it as much as I could have.

There was no excitement, no mystery - nothing like the previous movies, especially "The Goblet of Fire." It seemed like the other characters were only present to give Harry a break from hyperventilating all the time - they didn't work together as a team like they always have. Just writing about it is making me depressed all over again.

It's strange (and a little bit pathetic) how a set of juvenile books and adapted films can be such a big part of my life. Bear with me.

It was like when you were a kid, and you waited all year for Christmas to come because you just knew that your parents had picked up your millions of hints you'd been dropping all year about the really expensive bike you needed. But then when you come out of your bedroom on Christmas morning, you look around at all the packages and notice that not a single one is large enough to hold the extravagant gift you swore you were getting. Still, you rush in to your pile, hopeful through it all, and nothing is like you thought it would be - your parents had bought you rollerskates. Sure, they're practical and they'll get you around, same as a bike would, but they leave so much left to be desired. You smile grudgingly and thank them for the gift, silently stewing that they couldn't deliver your dreams. It was like they hadn't listened, and they couldn't give you what had been so important to you for so long. You set the roller skates aside and don't so much as glance in their direction for days. Finally you pick them up and hold them, realizing that you shouldn't hate them because of what they're not, but appreciate them for what they are. You should be happy that you were given a gift at all, even if it didn't live up to your standards.

Boohoo.

Anyway, I picked up my reserved copy of The Deathly Hallows yesterday morning, but was too busy to start it until now. I plan on spending my entire day on the couch, reading as quickly as I can and praying that none of my favorite characters die. It's weird to think that in just a few minutes, nothing will ever be the same - there'll be no more anxiety waiting for the next book to come out, no more racing through a text and chiding myself for not making it last, no more predictions that Harry couldn't possibly be the one to die.

See you when it's over......................

Sometimes, you just know.

Have you ever met someone you've had an instantaneous connection with? No words, no explanation of any kind... just a single look, a lingering of the eyes... a spark, a connection... something new, something that the two of you created in that very moment, something that exists only in the space between you?

I have. Once. It lasted one-hundred-twenty-three minutes. It was with a little movie called Elizabethtown. I know we haven't known each other that long, and you're probably going to tell me it's too soon... but there's something about this one, something real and true. I think this is The One.

Nothing - no other movie, song, book, person - has ever touched my heart the way this movie has. It's full of hope. Through all the sadness, confusion, melancholy, joy, and hilarity, every scene is laced together by the underlying idea of hope. Hope, at first, for a better or different kind of life... then hope, ultimately, for the kind of life that has always existed but you've overlooked for want of something else.

I will tell you... I have not been happy for quite a long time. It's been a bit of a charade around here for the past few months. But right now, at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 11, with the credits rolling in the background... I am happy.

Is it strange that a movie - a silly, insignificant movie - has played such a large role in my life? And that to me, a young woman from a small, Indiana town, it has given me a shred of what I've always been searching for?

"We should have taken this trip years ago."