All of a sudden, I miss everyone

I hung out with Trash and The Dude this evening. It was pretty nice, other than the fact that I felt more socially inept than I normally would around them. Rachel tagged along as we went to this place called the Blazing Onion Burger Co. down at the Mill Creek Town Center. I swear, that place has got the best chipotle sauce I've ever tasted. Anyway, after we killed some time back at The Dude's apartment by playing a game of Scene It? (in which I pulled a comeback victory, by the way) we made our way to meet Magic at the Alderwood 16 for the 10:30 showing of Juno.

For some reason, I found myself really uncomfortable in the theater lobby. I think it might have had something to do with the near-inconceivable number of fashionably dressed attractive ladies in the building and the fact that, as much as I claim to enjoy being unfettered, I couldn't help but feel lonely and ashamed and a little bit irritated as I silently pined for practically every female I passed on the way to theater number twelve. It felt like I had a spider-sense for hot girls that was going off every which-a-way and it was driving me fucking nuts. It's like I wanted to look away from all the sexiness, but the only thing that could successfully divert my attention was another form of sexiness. Peep this: if it wasn't the impeccably-kempt dirty blond ponytail coming from one direction, it was the pair of figure-friendly lounge pants with strategically placed printing on the ass from another; do I stare at the houndstooth ballet slippers with visible toe cracks at 2:00 or the lacy shirtbottom peeking out from underneath the velvet blazer at 11:00? It was pretty terrible. I can't recall the last time I went apeshit the way I did this evening. It's not even that I want to naughtify any of these young women, as attractive I may find them; it's just that their mode of dress gave the impression that they were of the type that I'd prefer to have nearby (For clarification purposes, more so on an emotional level than a physical one). On the other hand, however, it's becoming all too apparent to me that the whole Marissa Cooper-esque surfer girl/ironic hipster look has really spearheaded its way into the minds and closets of the young trend-jumping, celebrity gossip-following female psyche in the past few years, who proceed to flood the market with their nerdy, semi-intellectual, beatnik disguises (which, as we all know, would be attractive as hell if they carried the personality to back it up) and make my spider-sense tingle with false hopes (I know it'd be stupid to assume that an entire subculture of women is airheaded merely because they're trendy, but I would consider the average female too extroverted and ideal-driven to tolerate my aloof and idiosyncratically dorky tendencies for very long, although one shouldn't rule out the possibility, no matter how remote). Part of me hopes that this loneliness is just seasonal and passes soon. On the other hand though, when you take it all into consideration it seems like I've been leaving myself some increasingly obvious clues, which most likely began when I woke up on my birthday and hipped myself into the idea of getting a dog, that I've begun to get short on this this solitary refinement period that I've been putting myself through this year.

I guess it should be of some comfort to me that, in all likelihood, my personality probably wouldn't mesh very well with the majority of the modish chick-a-dees a go-go to which my eyes feasted themselves upon and that it would be best if I left my idealistic, cuddly fantasies alone. I hate to be repetitive, but it helps to keep in mind one of my favorite Vonnegut quotes: "There is no way a beautiful woman can live up to what she looks like for an appreciable amount of time," and that it would probably take too much compromise to be worth much of anything. As much as I tell myself that it would do more harm than good to get myself involved with a girl at the present time, though, it currently seems as if no amount of rationalization will quell the thought that some quality female companionship would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, back to my film experience. So we found some choice seats, and my insecurity and cynicism and self-loathing began to outwardly manifest itself as contempt towards the advertisements that were showing prior to the theatrical previews, making points that I've already made in the past. Poor Trash had to put up with me dealing on the military mentality and the numbness of American culture; shit I'm sure he's hip to. It would prove damn near impossible for me to curb my irritability and discomfort, as a quick glance around the room revealed that we shared the room with a fair amount of the panache-happy Nancies that drove me batty out in the lobby, many of whom were wont to giggle and/or cavort with each other. A few of them were holding hands with or on the arm of a male steady, and without fail, said steadies could be physically described as at least 7-10 times the asshole I come off as. Granted, I've never spoken to any of these people, and yes, it's a very shallow way to judge a person's character, but very few times has this instinct of mine been proven wrong in the past. And besides, it's not the hardest thing in the world to pick a misogynist frat-boy prick out of a lineup, am I wrong? Anyway, the lights dimmed for the previews and I began to worry that the film following them was gonna take a major dump big time. Of course, this worry originated when I was forced to endure the trailer for a Katherine Heigl movie in which she plays a woman who's always the bridesmaid and never the bride. It was painfully obvious to whom this trailer was aimed at, and to think that I was about to view a film that would advertise to that demographic; well, you see my point. My fear only escalated when the next trailer began with a sound clip of deceased Drowning Pool vocalist Dave Williams, who repeatedly whispered, "Let the bodies hit the floor," reminding me of my worst memories of boot camp, in which I felt so relieved and excited to be fed music, but extremely disappointed that the music they fed me had to be so shitty and backwoods. However, once the trailer kicked into full gear, I have to admit that it looked quite good. The film, called Stop Loss, is about a U.S. soldier (played by Ryan Phillipe) who sees some fucked-up shit in Iraq and refuses to return when the gub'ment tells him to. I was quite surprised at how quickly my opinion about the film changed over the course of the trailer, and think that I just might see it when it comes out in March. Hopefully, it'll be as good as the trailer makes it out to be. However, the coup de grace came in the form of a preview for a Michel Gondry film starring Jack Black and the mighty Mos Def. That's really all that needs to be said.

So the film commenced, and it was really quite surreal to be watching Juno, as I had viewed its trailer so many times when I had gone to see Into the Wild that many of the scenes in the film were a lot more nostalgic than they should have been. I had already familiarized myself with much of the movie's music, and found myself marking out, for some weird reason, when Ellen Page recommended the song "All the Young Dudes" by Mott the Hoople to Jason Bateman. I definitely wasn't feeling the film's first fifteen minutes; it seemed like the dialogue was crammed with easily-decipherable yet lazy slang that was eye-rollingly stupid. For example, who says "For shizz" within the context of a serious conversation? If that's the kind of English kids are practicing these days, then I weep for the future. Fortunately, the plot got pretty heavy pretty fast and that crap didn't last very long. Hats off to Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner, who played the married couple seemingly desperate to adopt Juno's baby, as they are unable to conceive a child of their own. The marital tension that they put into their performances seemed very real, and it made their scenes quite hard for me to watch. Mark and Vanessa were very likable people, but they reminded me a lot of my own parents and what they were probably like before I was born. Of course, my dad was more into sports than music, but he was a textbook example of the whole "There are still some things that I'd like to do" attitude of a dude in over his head. And it was really creepy when Jennifer Garner's character said that she was born to be a mom, because on more than one occasion, I've had to hear my own mother spout such esteemed delusions. At the same time, though, I couldn't help but sympathize with the two of them in a way that I never could with my parents, because in the end, it comes down to wherewithal; my parents didn't have it, and I'm quite certain that my mom still doesn't have it.

During the scene at the mall, when Juno realizes how much Vanessa loves children, it was something of a turn-on to see her behave like that and I thought to myself that, as long as I was aware of it beforehand, being with a girl like that could be a lot of fun. I really don't think it'd be that bad. I mean, sure, I'd probably need a little time for a girl with that kind of personality to grow on me, but a future like that would be no worse than anything else I could get myself into. That being said, it made me ponder to myself how bad of a parent I'd be if the situation ever came up. And I concluded that, as long as it was a joint venture and not some freak accident/Knocked Up kind of thing, I'd probably make out alright. I think. I definitely don't think I'd have any qualms about it. It might sound a little premature and spooky for me to be saying this, but it occurred to me that a latent ability to be a good parent would be a desirable trait in a potential mate. Not so much that I'm suddenly crazy about the idea of having a kid, but the kind of maturity, not to mention the on-the-same-page kind of developed intimacy that would be required to deduce such a quality, that it speaks of would be an attribute that I'd seek out in a girl anyway. Yeah, I know. It was a weird thought to think and I'm probably a weird guy for thinking it, but the thing is, it didn't scare me. And I took a little comfort in that.

Long story short, it was a weird evening.

I'm getting pretty tired, man. Maybe if this shit is still on my mind tomorrow, I'll talk about it some more. For now, I gotta get some sleep.
Peace.