Adrienne (Furness) Pettinelli's Blog, page 32

A Week in Bad Cell Phone Pictures

It’s been a busy, busy week, but not so busy that I didn’t take time to snap bad pictures with my cell phone like a middle schooler. Here are Jason and I from last Friday’s fun. concert:

It took three tries to get that shot, as it was difficult coordinating being in the frame and making the flash work and holding the phone still enough that one could at least discern we were human. When we took this photo, I thought it wasn’t blurry at all.

That was a really fun concert.

On Tuesday, Benny had to go to the vet:

He has everyone at the vet’s office convinced that he’s the sweetest cat ever, which, if you know Benny, is a total joke. He gets to the vet’s office and yowls so piteously, though, if I’m not sitting immediately right next to him at every moment. Then when the vet picks him up, he goes boneless in an attempt to stop existing.

At home, it is such a different story.

On Wednesday, I wore Maxwell out with dancing:

For whatever reason, he was really tired this week and kept falling asleep on our car rides. I was tired, too, on account of the part where I’ve been spending all my spare time doing encyclopedia edits and selling my worldly possessions on Craigslist, but I can’t fall asleep on our car rides. Instead, I drink extra coffee.

Last night, we had a dinner for the people involved in today’s conference:

Going clockwise, that’s me, Xandi, George O’Connor, Jesse Karp, Tonia, Karen Green (who also rocks a Queen Bee purse!), Amy, Miranda, Colleen AF Venable, and Mark Siegel. Dinner was amazing, and the conference today was amazing.

Now it’s the countdown to Olivia and Sabrina’s wedding reception tomorrow, which I am so excited about. In the meantime, I have three articles to finish and submit, exercise to do, a house to clean, and possessions to sell.

Quotable Wednesday

“Readers’ advisory is found as much in the shelving as it is in a friendly chat.”

-Roger Sutton in “We Belong Together” in The Horn Book Magazine (May/June 2012)

Drama in the Film Club

I have a lot of Film Club catching up to do.

The Battleship Potemkin

This was John’s pick for Film Club to watch this month. I knew nothing about it when I sat down to watch it, and so I thought I was going to be able to simultaneously watch and fold laundry, but no. This is a silent film. I probably should have wikipediaed it before I watched it so I’d have a little more context, but I related to its basic message anyway because a continuous diet of bad food would be enough to make me overthrow a major world power, too. My favorite scene was the one when the people were rioting on shore: the sense of chaos and menace was very effective. I haven’t seen many films this old–so few that I hardly know how to talk about this one, and it’s propaganda besides–but this was impressive and interesting and an excellent example of why Film Club is good for me, broadening my horizons and all.

Various Topics Revisited

Brandon mentioned on his blog that he was glad to be getting to know my late husband through my posts, and that was a nice thing to hear. Brian and I watched a LOT of movies together; he would have loved Film Club. However, Brandon, I must also say that I was troubled to read about your enjoyment of Face/Off, which is a film I love to hate, but I will not argue with you about it because it is more fun to talk about how funny the elevator and speaker phone scenes were in The Cabin in the Woods. Also, the issue I have right now is with Chris, who said in his Titanic post that he was ten years old when that movie came out. I feel like we should have a Film Club rule that states that no one is allowed to say they were ten years old when Titanic was released. Or any other movie I saw when I was an adult.

Roller Coasters

I love them. Does that make me a hipster? That conversation got confusing, although I certainly appreciated John and Brandon swearing at each other.

Girls

I still haven’t watched the second episode of this new HBO show, but if Ben says it’s even better than the first episode, it must be true. And speaking of girls, I miss Lisa.

I’m Just Going to Sit Here Looking Pretty

While working on the seemingly endless Great Purge, I found this picture of me when I was maybe Max’s age. When I showed it to one of my coworkers, she said, “I recognize that leg.” And it’s true that my legs continue to prefer freedom to being all cooped up in something horrible, like pants. I wish we could see my whole shoe there, because what we can see shows every sign of being awesome.

I am struck again by how in my late 30s, I’ve gone almost entirely back to the hairstyle I had when I was five. I’ve been letting my hair grow, and it’s getting pretty long. I keep thinking I should get it cut, but then I’d have to make an appointment and go and everything, and I have all this other stuff to do, which was why I was posting a picture today instead of a longer post.

So I should post this already.

“I’ve Reclaimed the Use of My Imagination”

There was never any more inception than there is now,

Nor any more youth or age than there is now,

And will never be any more perfection than there is now,

Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.

-Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

I went to a concert on Friday night, and when we got there, Jason asked if he could buy me a drink. I said, “Yeah. Two. Shots of whiskey. Maybe three.”

Jason said, “Have you ever had whiskey?”

I said, “No.”

“It doesn’t taste good.”

“I don’t care.”

Finally, he decided I should have one shot before deciding on more, and I was like, Okay, Mom (even though, truly, I appreciate my friend who looks out for my welfare). I drank the first one before the bartender stepped away and got my second. Then my third. It was like drinking something alive that didn’t accept its fate.

That concert was so much fun. (The band was , so that sentence works on multiple levels.)

I have been thinking about acceptance lately. I have been thinking about responsibility. I have been thinking about fun. I want all three things in my life, but I’m struggling with the proportions, particularly with acceptance. Because I’m starting to think that acceptance is bullshit.

I mean, okay, there are some things one has to accept. I agree completely with Whitman, the great acceptor, in what he says above, in so much of what he says. One must learn to see the beauty in imperfection, in confusion, in now. You can’t be so focused on what isn’t that you fail to notice what is, and I love life’s moments.

This week, Maxwell crying about a toy we left at home. Me saying, “Look at me, Baby.” Him looking me right in my eyes. Me saying, “I love you.” Him saying, “I know.”

Lucas, 12 years old and only an inch shorter than me, still talking, this week about video games and Rick Riordan’s books and–surprise!–Family Guy.

Tammy telling me again that it’s okay to be selling my house because I bought it for another life. Because my best friend loves me and knows it’s time for me to build something new.

And then me, between the opener and the headliner on Friday night, drunkenly telling Jason–who, bless him, listens–and everyone else who was around about what I do not accept, what I hope for, what I want to change.

Then fun. came on, and I sang, and I danced. And every once in a while I leaned on the wall until everything stopped spinning.

But the world never stops spinning. The only thing I accept right now is that so many more things are possible than are not, and I am going to keep hoping and trying and living where things are not certain.

Quotable Saturday

Always be kind to animals,

Morning, noon, and night;

For animals have feelings too,

And furthermore, they bite.

-John Gardner, “Introduction” in A Child’s Bestiary

Tonight Is Going to Be fun.

In the meantime, “Be Calm.”

The Titanic in the Woods

Brandon asked Film Club to write about Titanic. Most everyone in Film Club is not writing about Titanic because there’s been this lengthy discussion happening about The Cabin in the Woods, the word hipster, and the trailer for Ted. Mary Kate & Ashley came up. It’s been kind of weird.

So Titanic.

Titanic came out about a week after I finished library school. This was a good time in my life. My then-husband was in remission after his first bout with cancer, he was back to work full-time, and I had just started my first full-time job. After five years of living in poverty and amid medical crises, I had a little breakdown that fall, and I was finally getting back to normal. It felt amazing to have for the first time in our adult lives decent health insurance and enough money to pay our bills. We celebrated this new great good fortune by going out to see Titanic on opening night.

Titanic got a lot of bad press in the months leading up to its release, with people saying James Cameron was spending way too much money and that the film was going to be a flop. I thought it was insane to suggest the film wasn’t going to do well. The Titanic is a topic of perennial interest, Cameron knows how to make a movie, and the previews looked fantastic. Brian and I were maybe two of twenty people in the theater opening night, and we were two of the ones who loved it so much that we dragged friends out to see it the very next night. Brandon alludes to the hype that built up after that opening weekend and how it has impacted his reactions to it through the years. I think I was lucky to see the film when everyone was still saying how bad it was going to be, which reinforces my feeling that it’s a good idea to see movies on the day they’re released.

So why do I like this movie enough that I’ve been considering going to see it yet again in its current 3D release?

Cameron screws up some major things. The storyline? Hokey, no doubt. This film is not a deep commentary–or any kind of commentary–on class and money and what happened to people when that ship sank. It’s an engaging story, though, in its simple way. The dialog? Egad.

What Cameron did have was the good sense to hire two excellent actors to deliver his problematic storyline and dialog, and those actors committed (though, as they’ve both said repeatedly, it was hard), and they made the story work as well as it could. The other thing that makes the film work, of course, is Cameron’s own commitment and insistence on a documentary level of detail in his sets, costumes, and effects. His investment and the investment he demanded from others made not the best movie of the year, but, I think, an admirable and entertaining movie. Because my husband was ill, we saw pretty much everything that came out that year, and there were way, way worse movies: Face/Off, G.I. Jane, Starship Troopers, Air Bud, Anaconda, As Good As It Gets. Save your stones for that crap, I say.

The Things We Do in the Morning

Lately Maxwell and I have been making art in the mornings:

Yesterday morning was kind of topsy-turvy and ended with everyone crying at some point (including me), but we also did this:

What is this, you ask? I have no idea, but it happened. I know because there’s a photo.

This morning, Maxwell and I saw a truck train after we dropped Lucas off at school:

Truck trains are the opposite of crying. We were so awed by this that we just sat there quietly staring at it until it was gone. Maxwell and I and silence aren’t things that often meet in the same place.

Entries from My Fifth Grade Journal, Part 4

5-6-85

Today was pretty fun. We didn’t have chorus today but we are going to have it tomorrow (yuck). We had a socil studies test (closed book) which turned into an open book test. I got up to 50 on T.I. logo today at activity pierod. Marianne and I are going to ride to Bob’s today, I can’t wait. Tomorrow we are starting the metro’s we are having Reading in the morning and English in the afternoon. I hope I get a good mark on both of them. I am not worried about reading I usually always get 100% on reading metro tests. Mrs. Maleski is correcting our U.S.A. booklets. I had to switch from pen to pencil because I couldn’t find my pen, oh well!

5-14-85

Today I woke up late, so the day was all mixed up. I didn’t get dressed until 8:00 but I got on my bus the first run. Marianne rode my bus today. Scott is bugging me, but doesn’t he always. I had to sit next to him once this year, I don’t need to again. Tomorrow we are going on a field trip to lockport. Our last class is science, our first was reading so math was second. In gym we started baseball, we didn’t have to go with the boys. In spelling all of our words start with the letter a, isn’t that strange? I remembered my film for sicence, so I won’t have to go to quiet room. Well, my spelling needs to be done, so I have to go. Well, I finished my spelling nad all of my other homework exsept Socil Studies. Bye!

5-20-85

Today we had to write a story for spelling, and we are supposed to do defn’s on Monday. Today is day 2 and I have Libary Club. Libary club can be fun, but only at times and those times very few. Most of the times I hate it. Today I can’t find a protractor for math, maybe I left it at home, who knows? Well, Mrs. Maleski said that we can bring them in tomorrow, but she won’t strech it any longer. I still have to read socil studies but that is due Wednesday morning. Tomorrow and Wed. are the writting test days. I spent my whole weekend away from home, but I’ll make it up this weekend.

6-4-85

Today we went to the Eastman Theater. We will probley have to write a thank you note to the conductor. I hope not. I now get to sit next to Tricia. We went to Burger King for lunch and McDonalds for dessert. I had a coke, fries, cheeseburger and a hot carmal sunday for lunch, yum that was good. There were a hole flock of ducks on the Gennisee River gotta go!