“Find what you love and let it kill you.”
Charles Bukowski
When the movie was over, I asked M if she thought Emma ever did love Joe. Because Emma never said yes or no when Joe asked her.
“We had a laugh, Joe.”
That’s not really an answer. Not a sufficient one, anyway.
“Don’t know,” M told me and got up to get more pizza.
“What do you think she meant when she said she didn’t owe him?” I pressed.
“Who knows?” M replied, checking her phone for messages.
“I wonder if she felt bad when Joe told her he’d mourned her, or if she was too empty to feel anything at all in the end.”
“Probably didn’t care,” M said, her mouth full.
“There was mad chemistry between Joe and Loretta, huh?”
M was no longer paying attention. She started talking about something she saw on Instagram, so whatever.
The next day, I asked my friend K about a film club she used to be in, where she and a group of fellow movie lovers would watch a movie and then analyze it to death. Because maybe I would start my own. (K’s film club was in another city.)
“I haven’t been in a while,” she said. “It was okay, but you’re going to get those ‘I’m a film student so my opinion is better than yours’ types. There’s always at least one, and they ruin it for everybody else.”
Ew, I thought. I know that type, and talking about movies with them isn’t fun.
“Stupid movie! It was just a stupid movie!” If anyone else picks out the movie, that is. Combine a superiority complex and an attempt at intelligible discourse, and it never bodes well for anyone.
But that aside, K gave me flashbacks to the book club I started and abruptly ended a few years prior.
I chose the first book because I was planning to read it anyway and everyone agreed they wanted to read it too. The first meeting was at a low-key restaurant where we chose a table in the corner and began to… discuss (for lack of a better word).
“I hated the characters! They were awful!”
“It was just a stupid book about a bunch of spoiled brats.”
“So superficial.”
“So dumb.”
“So beneath me.”
What a great idea that was. My friend, V, and I looked at each other from across the table and shook our heads.
I stopped reading the second book about 30 pages in because I didn’t like it. It wasn’t my type of book, which was okay. I didn’t ruin the meeting by telling everybody how not-for-me the book was over and over and over… and over. I simply told them why it wasn’t my kinda book, adding enough humor to let the girl who chose the book know that it wasn’t a big deal, and then I let them talk it out without interjecting with explosions of negativity.
For the third book, V offered up a suggestion, and everyone pulled out their phones to find a synopsis.
Snicker. “Sounds like a soap opera.”
Another snicker. “If that’s the next book, I’m going to skip it.”
Okay then. Onto the next suggestion, which was a book no less soap-opera-esque than the one V had suggested, but no one complained.
Note: I’m not going to say that nobody complained because it was someone other than the two blonde girls who shaved their legs (me and V) that suggested it, but I’m not going to say it wasn’t why, either.
V and I both liked the book, but we bailed on the book club. Whether or not the others continued to meet, didn’t ask, didn’t care. But that’s what happens when you start a book club with a bunch of vegans in Austin.
I decided I’ll rant my thoughts about movies, books, television, music, celebs, and whatever else on a blog instead. No interruptions and unnecessary skepticism from the holier-than-thous that I’m emulating here now.
(Emulation, over and out.)
I’m such a drama queen; I know. Cheers!
Certain Movies & Things 