Chelsey Cosh's Blog: From Mind to Mouth - Posts Tagged "oscars"
I Can Remember The Nights By The Sea in Tripoli. We Were So Much Bolder Then. I Had You And My Poetry to Protect Me. We Were Both Soldiers Then.
I love the Academy Awards. The day of the Oscars is a very special day for me. I am always over-the-top happy and bouncing around.
But this was a special year. You see, my husband loves Jimmy Kimmel. And my sister loves Sam Rockwell. Like, loves Sam Rockwell. More than one should.
So, here's the deal. I typically try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as humanly and economically possible prior to the ceremonies. I make a particular effort to get through as many of the Best Picture nominees as possible. Sometimes I go to to the cinema and double up on films. I know, I know, it's a hard life.
As someone who adored Pan's Labyrinth, I have been a longtime fan of Guillermo Del Toro. He uses fantastical elements to talk about the world. The Shape of Water, a love story about an exploited fish-man saved by a mute custodian at a high-security facility, is not really about that. I mean, on the surface, he's a fish-man, but it's more about "the different." Love is love, though, which Guillermo makes abundantly clear. I won't go into too much detail because it's worth the watch. It won Best Picture for a reason. Guillermo deserved his win, too, for Best Director; in fact, it's long overdue. I just want to say that I'm fed up of Octavia Spencer being robbed of her awards; that lady is a goddess, knocking it out of the park without fail, but she's always snubbed.
Speaking of snubs. Let's talk about Tonya Harding. Now, I know her name was mud for a very long time, but Margot Robbie's portrayal of Harding in I, Tonya changed my view. The scene in the courtroom where Robbie is tearfully begging the judge for leniency, asking to go to jail rather than receiving a lifetime ban from competitive skating, breaks your heart. Again, you see the world through another set of eyes. You learn empathy. You don't judge. You let yourself get absorbed into someone else's skin and walk in their shoes, if only for a few paces. You begin to understand more than you. I, Tonya, which was wildy entertaining, lets me see what life is like as, not an Olympic athlete with all the connotations that carries, but as a misunderstood, poverty-stricken, abused daughter from the backwoods who escaped onto the ice to break free from a lifetime of disappointment. Skating was not something she wanted to win; skating was a way to not lose anymore.
Then there's Call Me By Your Name. This movie went right to my soul. I managed to catch this one on a midnight showing. It broke my heart, just shattered it. Wrapped up in the mood-enhancing Sufjan Stevens score, Call Me By Your Name rips right into your heart and demands attention. Elio is a young French-American man on the cusp of adulthood and lives with his parents in Italy. His father, a professor, welcomes grad students into their home on a regular basis, which is how they are graced with the presence of Armie Hammer, a golden Adonis of an American man. Initially, there's a touch of contempt in their relationship, something like jealousy, something abrasive, but, in time, it gives way to something different. It's unique and lovely. There's a tenderness by the end of the movie that lingers long after the credits. Needless to say, I am going to read the novel on which it's based in the near future.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a flick that my sister was extremely interested in seeing. May I remind you of her status as the future Mrs. Rockwell? I was a fan of director Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths. I love the quirkiness of his writing, which embraces the darker walk of life. However, Three Billboards was not a dark comedy, like his earlier filmography, which makes it a bit of an oddball for that reason. It was tonally inconsistent, funny one moment and then deathly serious and then funny again, with barely a transitional buffer beween each shift. This whiplash makes it hard to get into the film, to relate, when you cannot tell whether the character is in pain or just out for a guffaw. The plot of the film deals with the violent rape and murder of a girl, as well as racially motivated police brutality. While they mostly focus on the former and the reaction and repercussions it evokes from the victim's family, the latter is barely even given a nod of recognition. It is a punchline, in fact, something that the character guilty of doing such things doesn't redeem. I don't feel right rooting for them. I understand people are flawed, but having your heart and mind in the right place matters a great deal. At least, it does to me. It left a sour taste in my mouth. Regardless, I was glad for Frances McDormand's win, especially because it gave her a platform to speak. And any time Frances opens her mouth, she gets down to business. My sister may love Sam Rockwell, but I love Frances McDormand.
Ladybird was my least favourite of the Best Picture nominees I watched. I didn't find it funny. I didn't find it much of anything, really. Ladybird (or Christine, if you want to call her by her birth name) seemed to be selfish and a bit rough on her mother. I mean, yes, she's a teenager. Yes, teenagers say and do things they don't mean. But I think she makes a special effort to spite her mother for no good reason. Maybe I'm biased because I adore Laurie Metcalf. (Roseanne is one of my favourite television programs of all time.) But I didn't think these were great roles for either of them, neither Laurie Metcalf or Saoirse Ronan. But what the hell do I know? They were both nominated for their performances last night. It simply didn't speak to me. But I still love Greta Gerwig and I'm ever so chuffed that her directorial debut is receiving accolades of any kind, whether or not it was my cup of tea.
I saw Get Out at the beginning of the year a few weeks after it was released. At the time, Oscars were not on my mind. I never imagined Get Out would be recognized. It was a compelling film, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I couldn't categorize it. It defied that. I delighted in it and told everyone I knew about it. Needless to say, I couldn't be happier for Jordan Peele's writing win. Comedians rarely get any credit. African-American men in particular face barriers when it comes to the Academy, unless your name is Denzel. So, it was beyond my expectations when they said his name.
Lesser lauded films, like The Big Sick and Molly's Game, got my attention, too, before the ceremony aired last night. The Big Sick, a comedy based heavily on the real-life love story of an American Palestinian Muslim and his white girlfriend, was a great dramedy that showed how diverse cultures embrace and clash. This film is distinctly about that overlap, as the protagonist brushes off his mother's attempts at an arranged marriage for her son and is forced to engage with his significant other's parents when he agrees to put her in a medically induced coma to save her life.
Molly's Game is not even close to being about that. This is one of the central issues with the Academy Awards, pitting one film against another and discovering that it's hard to decide which is better when they are so mind-boggling different from each other. Molly's Game is also a true story, opening up about Molly Bloom, an injured competitive skiier who gets sucked into the world of poker to fund her post-sports aspirations. However, she isn't a gambler; no, she hosts the games, setting them up and deciding the clientele. Little does she know who she is inviting will have grave consequences on her life. Still, she protects their privacy, even as it comes to personal cost to herself, including her life. I enjoyed it. It opened my eyes up and, in hindsight, shares a great deal with I, Tonya.
Throughout the year, I happened across a few of the blockbusters, of course, like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a nominee for a number of technical awards; Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2, which was up for its visual effects achievements; and Beauty and the Beast, a nominee for costume design and for production design, to name a few. (None of those aforementioned films were as good as their originals and predecessors, in my humble opinion.) I also happened to watch Baby Driver, which I firmly believed was robbed of both the sound editing and mixing Oscars last night. I mean, the whole film was choreographed to be in sync with music, from gunfire to footsteps. It was a jukebox action-musical. I mean, come on.
Now, for the rest.
Dunkirk, which won a handful of technical Oscars, was a film that I was interested in until I started watching it. I must reiterate something I've said many times before now: I do not like war movies. So, I got through thirty minutes of Dunkirk, only to uncover that, yep, Dunkirk is a war movie. And my rule applied in this case, meaning that I shut it off and didn't see it through to the end. So, I was a touch uninformed for a few categories, but it wasn't worth the watch, at least not for me.
Sometimes, there are films I make no attempt to watch. For example, I did not and still do not intend to see Darkest Hour. I wasn't all that interested in watching a Churchill biopic. (Frankly, the first season of The Crown with the marvellous John Lithgow summed up everything I really cared to know.) But when the allegations of sexual harassment started trickling in against Gary Oldman, I was especially turned off of the film. That being said, he still won the Best Actor award for the evening, which is reminiscent of Casey Affleck last year, who inexplicably won for the hopelessly sad and dull Manchester by the Sea, despite having a wave of accusations levelled against him.
I've yet to see The Post and Phantom Thread, as well as some of the films in the technical categories, such as Blade Runner: 2049, War of the Planet of the Apes, and the like. I actually have Mudbound downloaded from Netflix on my phone at this very moment. The intent is there.
Jimmy Kimmel, hosting the Oscars ceremony for the second time, did a marvellous job of walking the line between being too honest versus skirting past reality. Instead, he used his trademark humour to plunge headfirst into what is going on in the world, directly addressing it with a wink and a smile. He was superb. He showed appreciation and gave credit to those who deserved it. He even bid a special thank you to the moviegoing public by surprising an audience at a special preview screening of A Wrinkle in Time, rallying a few actors and filmmakers to show their love by handing out candy and hot dogs. And, may I add please how much a class act Gal Gadot is? She was one of the first jumping to her feet to volunteer. She truly is a wonder woman. I just adore her.
But I digress. It's been a truly spectacular year for film, one that forces you to reexamine how you feel about matters. One's sphere of experience grows a little wider. Motion pictures transport you across the world and demand your emotional investment. Just like novels, films have the capacity to make you a better person, make you experience a story beyond the reaches of your own imagination and implore you to understand people. That's something worth talking about, and, frankly, I hope the conversation never ends.
But this was a special year. You see, my husband loves Jimmy Kimmel. And my sister loves Sam Rockwell. Like, loves Sam Rockwell. More than one should.
So, here's the deal. I typically try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as humanly and economically possible prior to the ceremonies. I make a particular effort to get through as many of the Best Picture nominees as possible. Sometimes I go to to the cinema and double up on films. I know, I know, it's a hard life.
As someone who adored Pan's Labyrinth, I have been a longtime fan of Guillermo Del Toro. He uses fantastical elements to talk about the world. The Shape of Water, a love story about an exploited fish-man saved by a mute custodian at a high-security facility, is not really about that. I mean, on the surface, he's a fish-man, but it's more about "the different." Love is love, though, which Guillermo makes abundantly clear. I won't go into too much detail because it's worth the watch. It won Best Picture for a reason. Guillermo deserved his win, too, for Best Director; in fact, it's long overdue. I just want to say that I'm fed up of Octavia Spencer being robbed of her awards; that lady is a goddess, knocking it out of the park without fail, but she's always snubbed.
Speaking of snubs. Let's talk about Tonya Harding. Now, I know her name was mud for a very long time, but Margot Robbie's portrayal of Harding in I, Tonya changed my view. The scene in the courtroom where Robbie is tearfully begging the judge for leniency, asking to go to jail rather than receiving a lifetime ban from competitive skating, breaks your heart. Again, you see the world through another set of eyes. You learn empathy. You don't judge. You let yourself get absorbed into someone else's skin and walk in their shoes, if only for a few paces. You begin to understand more than you. I, Tonya, which was wildy entertaining, lets me see what life is like as, not an Olympic athlete with all the connotations that carries, but as a misunderstood, poverty-stricken, abused daughter from the backwoods who escaped onto the ice to break free from a lifetime of disappointment. Skating was not something she wanted to win; skating was a way to not lose anymore.
Then there's Call Me By Your Name. This movie went right to my soul. I managed to catch this one on a midnight showing. It broke my heart, just shattered it. Wrapped up in the mood-enhancing Sufjan Stevens score, Call Me By Your Name rips right into your heart and demands attention. Elio is a young French-American man on the cusp of adulthood and lives with his parents in Italy. His father, a professor, welcomes grad students into their home on a regular basis, which is how they are graced with the presence of Armie Hammer, a golden Adonis of an American man. Initially, there's a touch of contempt in their relationship, something like jealousy, something abrasive, but, in time, it gives way to something different. It's unique and lovely. There's a tenderness by the end of the movie that lingers long after the credits. Needless to say, I am going to read the novel on which it's based in the near future.
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was a flick that my sister was extremely interested in seeing. May I remind you of her status as the future Mrs. Rockwell? I was a fan of director Martin McDonagh's Seven Psychopaths. I love the quirkiness of his writing, which embraces the darker walk of life. However, Three Billboards was not a dark comedy, like his earlier filmography, which makes it a bit of an oddball for that reason. It was tonally inconsistent, funny one moment and then deathly serious and then funny again, with barely a transitional buffer beween each shift. This whiplash makes it hard to get into the film, to relate, when you cannot tell whether the character is in pain or just out for a guffaw. The plot of the film deals with the violent rape and murder of a girl, as well as racially motivated police brutality. While they mostly focus on the former and the reaction and repercussions it evokes from the victim's family, the latter is barely even given a nod of recognition. It is a punchline, in fact, something that the character guilty of doing such things doesn't redeem. I don't feel right rooting for them. I understand people are flawed, but having your heart and mind in the right place matters a great deal. At least, it does to me. It left a sour taste in my mouth. Regardless, I was glad for Frances McDormand's win, especially because it gave her a platform to speak. And any time Frances opens her mouth, she gets down to business. My sister may love Sam Rockwell, but I love Frances McDormand.
Ladybird was my least favourite of the Best Picture nominees I watched. I didn't find it funny. I didn't find it much of anything, really. Ladybird (or Christine, if you want to call her by her birth name) seemed to be selfish and a bit rough on her mother. I mean, yes, she's a teenager. Yes, teenagers say and do things they don't mean. But I think she makes a special effort to spite her mother for no good reason. Maybe I'm biased because I adore Laurie Metcalf. (Roseanne is one of my favourite television programs of all time.) But I didn't think these were great roles for either of them, neither Laurie Metcalf or Saoirse Ronan. But what the hell do I know? They were both nominated for their performances last night. It simply didn't speak to me. But I still love Greta Gerwig and I'm ever so chuffed that her directorial debut is receiving accolades of any kind, whether or not it was my cup of tea.
I saw Get Out at the beginning of the year a few weeks after it was released. At the time, Oscars were not on my mind. I never imagined Get Out would be recognized. It was a compelling film, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. I couldn't categorize it. It defied that. I delighted in it and told everyone I knew about it. Needless to say, I couldn't be happier for Jordan Peele's writing win. Comedians rarely get any credit. African-American men in particular face barriers when it comes to the Academy, unless your name is Denzel. So, it was beyond my expectations when they said his name.
Lesser lauded films, like The Big Sick and Molly's Game, got my attention, too, before the ceremony aired last night. The Big Sick, a comedy based heavily on the real-life love story of an American Palestinian Muslim and his white girlfriend, was a great dramedy that showed how diverse cultures embrace and clash. This film is distinctly about that overlap, as the protagonist brushes off his mother's attempts at an arranged marriage for her son and is forced to engage with his significant other's parents when he agrees to put her in a medically induced coma to save her life.
Molly's Game is not even close to being about that. This is one of the central issues with the Academy Awards, pitting one film against another and discovering that it's hard to decide which is better when they are so mind-boggling different from each other. Molly's Game is also a true story, opening up about Molly Bloom, an injured competitive skiier who gets sucked into the world of poker to fund her post-sports aspirations. However, she isn't a gambler; no, she hosts the games, setting them up and deciding the clientele. Little does she know who she is inviting will have grave consequences on her life. Still, she protects their privacy, even as it comes to personal cost to herself, including her life. I enjoyed it. It opened my eyes up and, in hindsight, shares a great deal with I, Tonya.
Throughout the year, I happened across a few of the blockbusters, of course, like Star Wars: The Last Jedi, a nominee for a number of technical awards; Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2, which was up for its visual effects achievements; and Beauty and the Beast, a nominee for costume design and for production design, to name a few. (None of those aforementioned films were as good as their originals and predecessors, in my humble opinion.) I also happened to watch Baby Driver, which I firmly believed was robbed of both the sound editing and mixing Oscars last night. I mean, the whole film was choreographed to be in sync with music, from gunfire to footsteps. It was a jukebox action-musical. I mean, come on.
Now, for the rest.
Dunkirk, which won a handful of technical Oscars, was a film that I was interested in until I started watching it. I must reiterate something I've said many times before now: I do not like war movies. So, I got through thirty minutes of Dunkirk, only to uncover that, yep, Dunkirk is a war movie. And my rule applied in this case, meaning that I shut it off and didn't see it through to the end. So, I was a touch uninformed for a few categories, but it wasn't worth the watch, at least not for me.
Sometimes, there are films I make no attempt to watch. For example, I did not and still do not intend to see Darkest Hour. I wasn't all that interested in watching a Churchill biopic. (Frankly, the first season of The Crown with the marvellous John Lithgow summed up everything I really cared to know.) But when the allegations of sexual harassment started trickling in against Gary Oldman, I was especially turned off of the film. That being said, he still won the Best Actor award for the evening, which is reminiscent of Casey Affleck last year, who inexplicably won for the hopelessly sad and dull Manchester by the Sea, despite having a wave of accusations levelled against him.
I've yet to see The Post and Phantom Thread, as well as some of the films in the technical categories, such as Blade Runner: 2049, War of the Planet of the Apes, and the like. I actually have Mudbound downloaded from Netflix on my phone at this very moment. The intent is there.
Jimmy Kimmel, hosting the Oscars ceremony for the second time, did a marvellous job of walking the line between being too honest versus skirting past reality. Instead, he used his trademark humour to plunge headfirst into what is going on in the world, directly addressing it with a wink and a smile. He was superb. He showed appreciation and gave credit to those who deserved it. He even bid a special thank you to the moviegoing public by surprising an audience at a special preview screening of A Wrinkle in Time, rallying a few actors and filmmakers to show their love by handing out candy and hot dogs. And, may I add please how much a class act Gal Gadot is? She was one of the first jumping to her feet to volunteer. She truly is a wonder woman. I just adore her.
But I digress. It's been a truly spectacular year for film, one that forces you to reexamine how you feel about matters. One's sphere of experience grows a little wider. Motion pictures transport you across the world and demand your emotional investment. Just like novels, films have the capacity to make you a better person, make you experience a story beyond the reaches of your own imagination and implore you to understand people. That's something worth talking about, and, frankly, I hope the conversation never ends.
Don't tell Paul, but I'm not getting married.
Cold feet don't just happen in January.
No, they happen year-round. My fiance has this terrible habit of getting a toothache before weddings. He is miserable when he has them, just inconsolably cranky. Both of his kids suffered through his toothaches for their respective nuptials. Knowing this, I jokingly referred to this as his cold teeth.
Now it's been a few weeks and his doses of amoxicillin have done the trick and he's feeling great again. But my tiny fragment of a joke left me wondering about how I'm handling my premarital anxiety.
A few weeks ago, I would have said superb. I've been lifting weights and using our elliptical machine at home for stress relief and weight loss because I gained a great deal of stress and weight when this global pandemic started.
But now... prepare to watch me spiral.
I tried on my wedding dress and, of course, it doesn't fit. (Do they ever?) Alterations had to be done, but what do you do in the midst of a provincial lockdown? No tailor is available. I almost wish I didn't try on the gown. Boobs exposed, I look like a bride only from the waist down. I belong on a pole the waist up. Perhaps not one that is well frequented, either.
I tried to be positive about it, that - yay! - I had successfully lost weight. But I was absolutely shocked and, of course, I lost it wrong. Who knew such a thing could be done.
A week ago, I checked in on all the experts who were going to make me look halfway decent for a day. And lo and behold, my makeup artist had quit and the whole establishment is closed anyway. The lady at reception told me that I would need to bring in my makeup, of which I owned none. Yes, past tense. Owned.
You don't have to tell Chelsey Cosh twice to get her shit in order. I now own one of everything and have watched YouTube tutorials until it turned out pretty okay in my humble opinion. Not spectacular or bridal or anything in that ballpark. But decent.
I will be practicing again next weekend, despite hating the feel of it on my skin. So, I can safely say I must double the alloted time on my wedding day for me to do my makeup half as well as the professional. I'm aiming for half. Okay, that's too ambitious - a third will do.
And that's if we can even get married. Currently, I cannot get a marriage licence, the only document I need to legally perform this hoedown - my appointment for late April was cancelled by the government and the shutdown has been extended at least until the final weeks of May. That gives me June and the beginning of July.
Are you feeling frustrated yet?
If it isn't already abundantly clear, I do not advise getting married during a pandemic.
I don't really advise doing anything this year.
I've been trying to remain goal-oriented this year to give life purpose. 2020 was a surprise, but 2021 I will seize back a modicum of control.
And, boy, do I mean a modicum.
It may seem like small potatoes, but the Oscars were coming up and I'd done my level best to watch as many of the nominees as possible. It's been tricky, what with closures of cinemas, but I've strived to get 'er done.
These are not ambitious goals, but let's aim for the achievable.
Unfortunately, time was not on my side and I didn't even get close to what I was hoping for. Bear in mind, I'm a completionist. I watch the shorts, the foreign language features, all things animated ... but not this year. This year didn't have enough days in the week for me to accomplish this most minor of goals.
I'm turning thirty this year, and since I am the planner in my circle, I am fairly sure I will not be having any kind of birthday celebration. Right now birthdays are pretty much against the law.
One of my friends is a nurse dealing with a mental health crisis because of an idiot premier who decided to add more restrictions to a stay-at-home order in response to growing numbers but doesn't accept federal help or medical advice about where all the damn cases are cropping up. Let's just throw darts at the problem and see what sticks.
Anyway my friend - let's call her Nurse Angel because she is both - is currently reading a self-help book entitled The Untethered Soul and I'm hoping she's having more luck than me because "untethered" is an understatement.
Everything is spinning out of control, in my humble opinion, and yet I've been able to get both my father and fiance vaccinated based on age and hotspot postal codes (respectively). A week ago, I watched my father walk through the screening tent with glee and proceed to get his jab with both middle fingers in the air, whooping like he's going to a rock concert.
Boy, do I miss Rock concerts. I think I may still have deferred tickets to REO Speedwagon.
Anyway, despite this positive news, I can't help but feel glum because I cannot get myself vaccinated on account of being too damn young despite working overtime throughout all of this bullshit as a frontline essential worker. But because I don't fit in the right category as designated by the aforementioned idiot premier, I don't get to feel a little bit safer. I continue to shake with fear.
Alas, mass unemployment plagues the country, so I should shut my mouth because at least I have a damn job.
I feel selfish. Yet another byproduct of this spiral.
Oh, and after weeks and weeks of delaying the inevitable, I listened to the notification on my phone warning me that my phone's SD card had an issue that needed fixing yesterday.
Full disclosure: I cheaped out when I bought the card in the first place. It was too good a deal to pass up, and I had to buy two: one for me and one for the fiance. So, frugality played a huge part in my decision.
Anyway, I backed up all my data and anyone who had ever had to do that knows it's a massive pain in the ass. It takes far too much time and is rife with arduous sorting of documents and photos and videos. You have to decide whether you truly need that vacation video from Cuba where you drank all the mojitos and danced in the middle of the hotel's live entertainment performance. So I kept it just in case.
But at the end of this process, I hit, yes, please reformat.
And the corrupted card just didn't. Instead it sabotaged my phone's power and, since phone is my third appendage, my keeper of all things important now that my memory fails me on the regular, I lost it. On and off and on and off it went.
Finally, I ripped the case off the phone, dug out the magic pin that pops open the SD card holder, seized the damn card, and chucked it on the kitchen counter with a few expletives and a lot of tears. I guess I will have to delete that video after all.
And to top all of these layers of problems that sit like blankets on top of each other, overlapping at the edges, I heard from across the pond today that my grandmother is dying.
My grandmother who lived with me until the age of 9 and told me one day my name would be in lights.
My grandmother who always supported me and gave me the courage to just be me and know that is more than enough.
My grandmother whom I love more than anything.
And I cannot see her.
And I cannot begin to describe the pain.
And all the little things that bothered me before seem meaningless.
No amount of four-letter words are going to ease the pain and moving throughout the day, just grappling through each motion, feels like a betrayal, as if I'm not paying enough attention to the person that matters most, the thing that holds more weight than anything possibly could. Life feels bipolar, as if being anything other than a mess is confusing, but I have no choice but to pull it together.
Life makes no sense.
And maybe it never will make sense. Because it's actually death that makes no sense to me.
When I collapsed at the end of the day on more than one occasion, if I'm being frank, drowning in a puddle of my own tears and wanting to watch Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann turn 40 instead of some foreign language short about depressing subject matter that I did not have the composure to contemplate right now, I felt like my future husband was there for me. He picked me up again and again. He held me together. He picked up the takeout. He drove me to wherever we needed to go. He even filled our backyard with flowers to remind me that there is light and there is colour.
So cold teeth, feet, arms, legs, mouth and nose be damned.
No, they happen year-round. My fiance has this terrible habit of getting a toothache before weddings. He is miserable when he has them, just inconsolably cranky. Both of his kids suffered through his toothaches for their respective nuptials. Knowing this, I jokingly referred to this as his cold teeth.
Now it's been a few weeks and his doses of amoxicillin have done the trick and he's feeling great again. But my tiny fragment of a joke left me wondering about how I'm handling my premarital anxiety.
A few weeks ago, I would have said superb. I've been lifting weights and using our elliptical machine at home for stress relief and weight loss because I gained a great deal of stress and weight when this global pandemic started.
But now... prepare to watch me spiral.
I tried on my wedding dress and, of course, it doesn't fit. (Do they ever?) Alterations had to be done, but what do you do in the midst of a provincial lockdown? No tailor is available. I almost wish I didn't try on the gown. Boobs exposed, I look like a bride only from the waist down. I belong on a pole the waist up. Perhaps not one that is well frequented, either.
I tried to be positive about it, that - yay! - I had successfully lost weight. But I was absolutely shocked and, of course, I lost it wrong. Who knew such a thing could be done.
A week ago, I checked in on all the experts who were going to make me look halfway decent for a day. And lo and behold, my makeup artist had quit and the whole establishment is closed anyway. The lady at reception told me that I would need to bring in my makeup, of which I owned none. Yes, past tense. Owned.
You don't have to tell Chelsey Cosh twice to get her shit in order. I now own one of everything and have watched YouTube tutorials until it turned out pretty okay in my humble opinion. Not spectacular or bridal or anything in that ballpark. But decent.
I will be practicing again next weekend, despite hating the feel of it on my skin. So, I can safely say I must double the alloted time on my wedding day for me to do my makeup half as well as the professional. I'm aiming for half. Okay, that's too ambitious - a third will do.
And that's if we can even get married. Currently, I cannot get a marriage licence, the only document I need to legally perform this hoedown - my appointment for late April was cancelled by the government and the shutdown has been extended at least until the final weeks of May. That gives me June and the beginning of July.
Are you feeling frustrated yet?
If it isn't already abundantly clear, I do not advise getting married during a pandemic.
I don't really advise doing anything this year.
I've been trying to remain goal-oriented this year to give life purpose. 2020 was a surprise, but 2021 I will seize back a modicum of control.
And, boy, do I mean a modicum.
It may seem like small potatoes, but the Oscars were coming up and I'd done my level best to watch as many of the nominees as possible. It's been tricky, what with closures of cinemas, but I've strived to get 'er done.
These are not ambitious goals, but let's aim for the achievable.
Unfortunately, time was not on my side and I didn't even get close to what I was hoping for. Bear in mind, I'm a completionist. I watch the shorts, the foreign language features, all things animated ... but not this year. This year didn't have enough days in the week for me to accomplish this most minor of goals.
I'm turning thirty this year, and since I am the planner in my circle, I am fairly sure I will not be having any kind of birthday celebration. Right now birthdays are pretty much against the law.
One of my friends is a nurse dealing with a mental health crisis because of an idiot premier who decided to add more restrictions to a stay-at-home order in response to growing numbers but doesn't accept federal help or medical advice about where all the damn cases are cropping up. Let's just throw darts at the problem and see what sticks.
Anyway my friend - let's call her Nurse Angel because she is both - is currently reading a self-help book entitled The Untethered Soul and I'm hoping she's having more luck than me because "untethered" is an understatement.
Everything is spinning out of control, in my humble opinion, and yet I've been able to get both my father and fiance vaccinated based on age and hotspot postal codes (respectively). A week ago, I watched my father walk through the screening tent with glee and proceed to get his jab with both middle fingers in the air, whooping like he's going to a rock concert.
Boy, do I miss Rock concerts. I think I may still have deferred tickets to REO Speedwagon.
Anyway, despite this positive news, I can't help but feel glum because I cannot get myself vaccinated on account of being too damn young despite working overtime throughout all of this bullshit as a frontline essential worker. But because I don't fit in the right category as designated by the aforementioned idiot premier, I don't get to feel a little bit safer. I continue to shake with fear.
Alas, mass unemployment plagues the country, so I should shut my mouth because at least I have a damn job.
I feel selfish. Yet another byproduct of this spiral.
Oh, and after weeks and weeks of delaying the inevitable, I listened to the notification on my phone warning me that my phone's SD card had an issue that needed fixing yesterday.
Full disclosure: I cheaped out when I bought the card in the first place. It was too good a deal to pass up, and I had to buy two: one for me and one for the fiance. So, frugality played a huge part in my decision.
Anyway, I backed up all my data and anyone who had ever had to do that knows it's a massive pain in the ass. It takes far too much time and is rife with arduous sorting of documents and photos and videos. You have to decide whether you truly need that vacation video from Cuba where you drank all the mojitos and danced in the middle of the hotel's live entertainment performance. So I kept it just in case.
But at the end of this process, I hit, yes, please reformat.
And the corrupted card just didn't. Instead it sabotaged my phone's power and, since phone is my third appendage, my keeper of all things important now that my memory fails me on the regular, I lost it. On and off and on and off it went.
Finally, I ripped the case off the phone, dug out the magic pin that pops open the SD card holder, seized the damn card, and chucked it on the kitchen counter with a few expletives and a lot of tears. I guess I will have to delete that video after all.
And to top all of these layers of problems that sit like blankets on top of each other, overlapping at the edges, I heard from across the pond today that my grandmother is dying.
My grandmother who lived with me until the age of 9 and told me one day my name would be in lights.
My grandmother who always supported me and gave me the courage to just be me and know that is more than enough.
My grandmother whom I love more than anything.
And I cannot see her.
And I cannot begin to describe the pain.
And all the little things that bothered me before seem meaningless.
No amount of four-letter words are going to ease the pain and moving throughout the day, just grappling through each motion, feels like a betrayal, as if I'm not paying enough attention to the person that matters most, the thing that holds more weight than anything possibly could. Life feels bipolar, as if being anything other than a mess is confusing, but I have no choice but to pull it together.
Life makes no sense.
And maybe it never will make sense. Because it's actually death that makes no sense to me.
When I collapsed at the end of the day on more than one occasion, if I'm being frank, drowning in a puddle of my own tears and wanting to watch Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann turn 40 instead of some foreign language short about depressing subject matter that I did not have the composure to contemplate right now, I felt like my future husband was there for me. He picked me up again and again. He held me together. He picked up the takeout. He drove me to wherever we needed to go. He even filled our backyard with flowers to remind me that there is light and there is colour.
So cold teeth, feet, arms, legs, mouth and nose be damned.
