What a Way to Go: Network

I managed to get an inexpensive ticket back to GA, with a 6 hour layover in Vegas. That'd be bad, as I hate Vegas, but I have friends there that I got to see. That was excellent. It is the longest flight I've ever been on, and it's also a flight of many firsts.

First plane poop - I've never used the restroom on a plane before. You didn't want to know that. I'm not exactly sure why I shared it.

First flight meal - They sell meals now, and I was hungry enough to get the walnut chicken salad sandwich. Thank goddess it's not like the flight food I'd always been warned about.

First descent ear-pain - The entire decent to that next morning, my ears would NOT release pressure, and I found myself in excruciating pain and barely being able to hear. I tried all I could. It did not matter. Even now I'm still in a little bit of an echo chamber. You see, I had a flu. It's almost gone, but... great time to have it, I guess.

First flight nookie - Just kidding, still not a member of the mile-high club, wanting to make sure you're still paying attention.

First flight movie - Never been on one with a movie before. And sure enough, they apologized for not having earphones available to sell. Well, sell? I don't think so. But, they announced, if you already have some... and guess what... Mickey's in my pocket! I can read while I listen to my mp3 player (named Mickey, by the way) if I don't care about the movie they'll play. Yeah, I have an mp3 player. I'm not proud of the fact.

What's the film? The Nanny Diaries. Oh well, I'll just... aw screw it, it'll help pass the time. Sure, I'll watch. I'm expecting a silly, stupid, cutesie doofy movie the likes of which only Disney or Nickelodeon can deliver. But what was on that screen is anything but... it slapped me in the ass with reality, and I hope it slaps many others as well. This film is neither funny, nor is it even remotely amusing. It pissed me off. It made me cry. And most of all, it was precisely what I needed to see at precisely the time I needed to see it.

I finally have made sense of my time in Arizona...

The film is about a girl who graduates college in business and anthropology, in case you were wondering why it's even pertinent here. She presents the film to you as an anthropological report on the people of Manhattan, where she's now running off to start her career. Her mom wants her to stick around awhile, but naturally she wants to be off on her own. Her name is Annie.

I forget Annie's last name, so I'll call her Annie Body, because I'm a frickin' weirdo. She's in an interview. The lady looks at her and says, "So tell me all about who the real Annie Body really is." She smiles confidently, starts to speak, then... freezes. Mumbles. And finally admits, "I don't really know, 'scuse me," and bolts out the door.

She had no idea who she was. I guess mind-numbing zombie-education made sure she forgot. Can any of us relate? Naaaahhhh!!!!!

So she's in the park, and a child out of nowhere hugs her and tells her he loves her. He's basically just acting out, because apparently he does this a lot, his mother explains. His name is Greer. Mommy (obviously a rich bitch played by the fabulous Laura Linney... by the way, if you've not seen her other film, "Man of the Year", shame on you) apologizes, and introduces herself. Our girl's still in her business suit and introduces herself as Annie. The woman mis-hears her to think she said she's a "nanny" and insists very belligerently to hire her because she's desperately in need of one. Annie is stuck. After all, if she doesn't know who she is, how can she find what she's supposed to do. She becomes a nanny.

You're thinking... okay... so? Don't forget my love for anthropology. So? Hang in there, it's getting good.

As she narrates, she speaks about the family in the terms of being the "Manhattan Tribe" and how different they are from others. She even takes Greer to a museum of anthropology, and when looking at wax figures of tribal peoples (you should be hearing bingo lights now, right?) he asks here where's the nanny. This alone should make you cringe at the travesty, of course, but... it keeps going.

He's a really sweet kid when she breaks into him, quite quickly. You may think this'll be a typical nightmare child movie, but it's not. He's only a nightmare for a couple of moments. He's in need. And his parents are not there and never are there. THEY are the nightmare.

Anthropologists must at all moments remain distant and closed off from those they study, you know. There is always the danger of "going native" and wanting to stay and become one of the tribe. I find it ridiculous they call this a danger. Well her moment comes when Greer tells Annie that he loves her. He really means it. Nobody's ever let him get close before, or even care enough to let him break a rule and be a real kid for once, and she feels all the danger signs. It's a disaster job, and everything's so tragic and insane. But she looks at him and, honestly, tells him she loves him too. He smiles. And naturally, this makes her stuck. Because he sadly wants her to promise she'll never go away like the other nannies.

And of course, nobody would approve of this, so it has to be kept secret. Annie's mom doesn't know what she's really doing, until mommy goes out of town and daddy's already out of town, and he's running 104 temperature. Thankfully, Annie's mother is a nurse. Unfortunately, that means she finds out about it.

Mommy didn't work her ass off to get Annie in college to become a nanny. Annie's stuck caring for a child who nobody else gives a shit about. It is a horrendous situation, and already I've had to hide tears. It's not funny at all. It's tragic as shit. I'm sure most would barely blink or care or notice anything about the film. It will never be on the list of great films. Not enough explosions or shaky cameras and giant monsters flattening buildings, I guess.

The epic part about the teddy bear was wonderful, but I won't give that away. Suffice it to say, when she's fired, she misses him horribly, and she realizes that she desperately hopes she brought about change with them, telling the mother off so badly and so appropriately that it's endearingly beautiful. This film is beautiful. Because there is nothing okay with what's going on to our culture's children, and it's time to shout out the fact. This is inexcusable. And since I'm leaving off the ending, I'm glad that I don't have to ruin it to tell you why this affected me.

All I do have to say is that she finally understood who she was and what she was made of... and what she didn't want to be, more importantly... the answer she was seeking all the time. Just like me. Her anger was righteous. Her indignation was incredible. And again, there's not really any comedy to this movie. Just one hell of a bitchslap to our abso-fucking-lutely ridiculous so-called "family values" that we say we hold so fucking dear in this fucking country. There is no way to use the F word too much when you talk about the unforgivable sin of our so-called child-rearing rituals in this culture.

I am tired of how empty we all feel, and how many of us suffer for no good reason whatsoever. I understand why I needed to be away and as frustrated and as separated as I was. I would've dived into a world and distracted myself from truth and reality just as much as everyone else does. I wanted parties and popularity and friends and such. I wanted to do my book but how serious was I... really? And yet now, I'm 100% devoted to what I've been talking about, and I realize the sheer emergency of it all. Not just because of how bad things are, but also because of how few people notice or care. They know. You know. It's not even remotely deniable. But people do not want to hear.

Every time I post so on my usual blog, someone unfriends me. No kidding. The latest of which surprised me. But it shouldn't surprise me. I have stopped caring for those who don't want to hear it. It has to be shouted to the rooftops and acted upon. We are not on the edge of a collapse. We are nothing more than continual, perpetual collapse!

All of this shown to me, finally, after months and months of wondering why the hell I'm so sad and feeling so off-track from life, stuck in Tucson... and it comes to me from a movie called the goddamned Nanny Diaries? How insanely weird does the universe work!

I had to excuse myself to the airplane bathroom. I had to let out the emotions I didn't even know had built up in me all this time. I had to face myself in the mirror and understand for once why I'd been off the path... what I wasn't listening to... why what I wanted wasn't what I needed... why I needed to think about more than just having a happy relationship and little life of my own... why all this time I've been so occupied by the lack of sex in my relationship, or the lack of friends and acceptance, or the lack of anything I can call personally and emotionally fulfilling. Whatever is guiding me through this horrid and wretched life and made me suffer so much, it has also gone through a great deal of trouble to show me what even I want to deny, and build me up for this moment. I have to do something, and I have to be entirely dedicated. I can be angry at the suffering later. I have a job to do.

And I don't care if anyone thinks I'm nuts. I submit to you I'm probably the most sane person they know, looking at the world as it really is, and not through the illusions I'm supposed to have. Like Socrates spoke about the shadows in the cave. Peak oil... water shortages... 200 species a day going extinct... ice caps are vanishing... and all they give a shit about is the fact I don't make money and go to work like a good little boy, so that I can pay rent, buy and use and consume like a good little boy, and become just another cog in this destruction machine of a culture we live it?

I'm tired of being told I need to change, when the world so clearly refuses to, no matter how much it's being shown, day in and day out, what it's doing.

And yet even I wanted to deny these things, become sedated in a nice relationship with good sexual interaction and a nice group of friends. When time after time I know these type of people will see my lack of money and end up hating me, thinking the worst of me, TALKING about me... to everyone they know. Guess what happened in Tucson? That. All of that and more. I'm alone, and I am angry about it. But I need to use my anger for motivation.

I fled from my family here in Georgia rather than coming to them, because if there's anything I feared most, it's losing them. I lose people who can't accept who I am and my lack of ability to make money and produce. It was fear that the same would happen with those that I love most that kept me distant from them, and they'd only end up hating me too. And that, I'm learning, was just stupid. They feel as I feel. They know as I know. They see as I see. And we've been talking about all of this since I got back two days ago, and I finally feel jazzed and energized and supported and loved and... truly accepted. I have support in THIS endeavor, instead of more friends just trying their might to make me a good little money-earner.

I needed to be here all along, but I had to be away to figure it out. I had to be alone, angry, and even in an unsatisfied relationship with a closed-off person, so that, like Annie, I can fully understand what I absolutely don't want to be. And now that I'm back, I need to dive in all the way. I need to "go native" and I need to go full force with the people who really will be able to support me... not just sustain me in the state of blindness I was in... that I'd put myself in, let me just make sure you understand. I am solely responsible for that state. But support me in what needs to be done, what I need to do, what needs to happen.

I had to learn who and what I was. I understand now. What a trip! And what a way to learn about it... from the inflight movie of me finally coming back, not knowing why I was running. It all comes clear. I am deeply humbled.

The conversations we've already been having since I got here... holy cow. It isn't just me. I am not the only ones who truly see. And we've so much to teach other.

I'm home, in more ways than one... and in one way, for the first time in my life.