Precious

I think part of the reason I stopped writing so much...at least part...is the fact that my therapist thinks that that's what I should do with my life. I really disagree...mostly because am neither driven to do it nor particularly good at it. I was just reading Dahlia Lithwick's real-time novel...she has a gift for creating a scene in your mind, along with an immediate understanding of what a character is about. It's really impressive for what it is. In any case, I have no skill at that, and I feel like to a certain extent, writing is a craft...one which I watch people do everyday. I'm good at critiquing it and drawing upon other things to expand it. But that's different than doing it.

I watched the movie Precious today. I was in the grocery store and this Asian lady came in selling DVDs. I like to buy DVDs from those ladies...it meets my "multiple reasons for doing things" criterion. I hate having to use the word criterion correctly, but there it is. Buying DVDs from those ladies does three things: one, you get a dvd and you dont' have to spend money or go to a movie theater...two, you get to participate in an illegal market...and three, you get to help a person who's trying to make a living make a living. It's good for everyone involved. I really can't express how little it matters to me that DVDs get pirated...they serve different markets.

Anyway, I figured I had to see it because I had been reading about it and thought it would be difficult not to see it in terms of holiday parties and such. Like I've never seen Brokeback Mountain...or LA Confidential...or...Monsters Inc. It comes up enough to make me just want to see the movie.

I have to say, it wasn't that good. It was a movie, there was incest, blah blah. I mean...I didn't want to feel *nothing*...but everything I felt was cheap and orchestrated. It wasn't that I didn't want to cry, it was that I resented crying. So I didn't cry at all actually. It wasn't very cathartic. Is this because I don't identify with her plight? Is it too repulsive? I'm not sure. I don't think that's the primary issue.