Disgraced journalists, yet again

Back down the rabbit hole! In honor of me (although there's still some paperwork to be done) becoming the editor in chief of my college's newspaper, I a) had a Big Mac meal for lunch and b) got myself some new stationery. Also, I looked up the school newspaper for the University of Maryland, because I wanted to see the kinds of articles they publish. It's a much bigger organization, so naturally, there's a bit more breadth to the things they cover. Someone I know of apparently is assigned to cover local government, which just seems so absolutely boring. I'm glad that I get to be editor in chief, as opposed to merely a writer working beneath other editors, which means I have total control over the things that I want to cover (or not cover) as I'm running the publication. Take that, other people who are stuck covering boring topics because they got assigned to it!! I'm going to be in charge!! (I know I'm already in charge of this blog, but me being editor in chief is something I would actually consider as being a real writer, albeit on a small scale. I'm going to have somewhat of an audience, and since I'm the editor in chief, I'll also get some amount of financial compensation.) It feels quite good to be on the brink of being in charge of something, once things get up and running. 

Then, I remembered that another disgraced journalist aside from Stephen "Shattered" Glass had worked at and was in fact the editor in chief of UMD's newspaper - Jayson Blair. I googled him and revisited his plagiarism and fabrication scandal a little bit. Does me becoming editor in chief mean I'm on the road to plagiarism, fabrication and eventually disgrace and infamy as a journalist??  

There's apparently a documentary about him, but I couldn't find it online to watch. Maybe I just need to look harder. I haven't finished his memoir/book yet since I'm not a huge fan of his writing style. It's not particularly great. I did however finish Stephen Glass' lightly/somewhat fictionalized account of his journalistic fall from grace. I'm telling you, even though he fabricated, I still think he was a pretty decent writer. 

Charles Lane, Stephen ('Shattered') Glass' editor at TNR who discovered the fabrications, gave an interview to NPR's Fresh Air program in 2003 coinciding with the release of the movie Shattered Glass. Later in the same episode of the program, Peter Sarsgaard, who played Lane in the movie, is interviewed as well. I actually hadn't come across that interview in the past, so it was nice to have found and listened to that. You can listen to both interviews at NPR's website. 

Edit: I wanted to add a link to this interesting article, which is about portrayals of journalism in film. It mentions various movies, some entirely fictional and some based on real events. When I think of journalism movies, I mostly think about the ones based on real events first, like Spotlight, All the President's Men, and Shattered Glass. However, this article mentioned some movies that aren't based on true events but also have at least somewhat to do with journalism - Contagion and Nightcrawler, both of which I've also watched. The article also mentions another disgraced journalist, Michael Finkel, that I wasn't aware of before, so I'm going to go read up on him now. Disgraced journalists, the gift/subject matter that keeps on giving! 

Edit 2: I thought of a quote that's sort of relevant, although altered slightly: "I can't be doing so badly, because I'm president editor in chief and you're not"

Edit 3: I thought I'd add these links here since I wasn't quite sure they warranted a whole new post of their own, and they regard Stephen Glass... Firstly, this article about his attempts to become a lawyer yet being denied by the courts. I don't remember if I've linked that in any of my past posts about him or not, so if I haven't, here it is. Secondly, this article about how Stephen, as editor in chief of his college newspaper, caught one of the writers fabricating. "You can’t make this stuff up, but if you can, you might want to send your resume to Rolling Stone." It has a link to an article in that same college newspaper (University of Pennsylvania) reflecting on Glass' fabrications, which I actually had not read before. I wonder if all of their articles are archived and accessible, and if I could possibly read some of Glass' articles from when he wrote there? Wouldn't that be something! I feel like I can safely qualify myself as an expert on Stephen Glass. Kind of an obscure subject matter to be an expert on, but whatever. Additional edit to this edit: Regarding the article in Glass' former college newspaper, I found it to be nice and lengthy, pretty interesting and insightful. It's mentioned that he was "not known as a good writer," which kind of surprised me; the same criticism had been leveled at him in at least one other article I've read written by one of his former coworkers at TNR. However, the finished product/articles from him seem well written, so perhaps that was after extensive editing/rewriting as some claimed. Someone who knew him in college described him in that article as being "charismatic" (which I've pretty much figured in all my reading about him) and a "natural leader." The Forbes journalist who became suspicious about Glass' final story for TNR is quoted, saying that perhaps Glass had wanted to get caught because he wasn't as careful with the last story to make it hard to discredit - mentioning he used last names and more specific locations, instead of only first names/anonymous sources and more vague details. That actually wasn't something I had thought of/considered myself before, but it's an interesting perspective. Obviously the only person who knows the answer to that is Stephen Glass himself. It would be interesting to be able to ask him about it though, as well as if he does/did in the past since 1998 want to return to journalism, and why didn't he just become a fiction writer/novelist in the first place? 

Movie review: Boys Don't Cry

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming, posts about Peter Sarsgaard...

I finally watched this movie (and eschewed/procrastinated my homework), which is one of the ones Peter Sarsgaard is more known for, and the one where he plays a murderer (although he has actually played murderers in some other roles too). It didn't disappoint me, which is good. Chloe Sevigny was also in this movie and she looked pretty. She had reddish/strawberry blonde hair in this movie which was different; she's usually blonde. 

It was a nice and sort of dreamy looking movie, and I liked the music as well. It's always nice when movies have good music too. This wasn't really a feel good movie; it involved violence and murder, which is alright by me but some people aren't really a fan of those things in movies. It was sort of more like a feel bad movie, kind of like Requiem for a Dream, which I also like quite a lot. I would say that this could be an addition to my favorite movies, and not just because it has Peter Sarsgaard in it. It's kind of interesting that he was in this movie with Chloe Sevigny and then a few years later he was in Shattered Glass with Chloe too. 

Unless I really hated a movie and want to be done with it (like Frailty or No Country for Old Men), I like to watch the entire credits; I feel like it's a natural part of the end of a movie, and most movies will have some sort of music over the credits. This movie used the song 'Bluest Eyes in Texas' which I guess you might consider a country music song, but regardless, I liked it. Memento used David Bowie's 'Something in the Air', which is the only David Bowie song that I actually like. And of course, there's 'Extreme Ways' from the Jason Bourne movies. And 'My Heart Will Go On' from Titanic. If I were to make a movie, I think I would want to have some music by Joy Division in it, possibly.  

Also, in the latest Peter Sarsgaard news, Netflix has released a trailer for a new series he's going to be in. In recent months I had read a little bit about its existence, but only now has the trailer been released, and the series is set to premiere in mid December. Right in time for winter break! The series is about CIA experiments, so I guess things like MK Ultra, and Peter Sarsgaard plays someone who is subjected to those experiments. It's a part documentary series and Peter is going to be in the reenactment scenes, I gather. The themes seem like they could be sort of similar to themes in the Jason Bourne movies, which should be cool. Still not much more news about the Hulu series he's going to be in, but I'm keeping an eye out. 

Next on my list: Dot the i, An Education, Brokeback Mountain or maybe some other Jake Gyllenhaal movie 

Postsecret review 12

"Getting a nose job is one of my greatest mistakes..." I wonder if the plastic surgery went horribly wrong and left the secret writer with an ugly deformed nose?

"Lately I've been dressing really slutty, going out and flirting with strangers. It's such a turn-on... But it's wrecking my life and I can't stop!" I wonder how exactly such behavior would wreck someone's life. Maybe this person means that it's ruining their reputation?

"I buy fruit that matches my kitchen to put in the fruit basket, EVEN IF I DON'T LIKE THEM." A more economical way of doing this would be to buy fake fruits of the kitchen matching kind, because fresh fruit will go bad and will continuously have to be replaced. Since the secret writer doesn't like these fruits, I would assume it goes uneaten and therefore wasted. 

"Would I be happier to stay an active member or to come out to live a gay lifestyle?" Over a picture of what I think might be a Mormon temple. Fun! (although it could be some other religion's temple; I'm not sure)

"During your next business trip, I'm going to consummate my affair!" Secrets about affairs are usually interesting.

"I fantasize about snorting coke to lose weight!" As are secrets about drugs. 

"When mom found my gay porn I burned it in the back yard before dad came home from work." ... That is... something else. I'm at a loss for words. 

"This is the last of my stripper glitter. I quit yesterday, I wanted to get out. But I know I'm going to miss this." I wonder what it would be like to be stripper. I think once I read a little about it online somewhere. I don't remember what got me started on reading about it though.

"[typed] Be aware that what you chase may not be worth catching. If you cheat for it, you will come to resent it. If you steal it, it will haunt you. What you work hard for may become the sweetest thing in life. [handwritten] I learned the hard way." Firstly: Ha! The only thing that haunts me (and it doesn't even really) is the fear that I might become a drug addict. Secondly: For some reason this secret sort of makes me think of Stephen Glass. I don't really think that he sent it, though. But it seems like something that he might possibly think. Today, I read an article about the history of the New Republic, the magazine he wrote for, and it mentioned the scandal that he caused, mentioning him as "Stephen 'Shattered' Glass". I thought that was amusing. 

"Thank you for indulging me in my habit of collecting unusual road names! It's one of the many reasons I love you! Leapheart Rd. Pig's Ear Rd. Big Banana Rd. Hitter's Delight Rd." It's not particularly unusual, but I think one of my favorite road names is Observation Drive. Maybe that's only because I hear it announced as a stop so often on the bus. It just rolls off the tongue of the automated voice doing the stop announcements so nicely... 

"My house owns me." I'm really not sure what this is supposed to mean. 

"[a photo of a woman in a church with thought bubbles of shoes above her head]" Maybe she's praying for more shoes??

"when people ask, I never explain the meaning of my tattoo ...I have a very strong feeling that I'm gonna go crazy one day and the tattoo is tiny part that I'm hoping will keep me sane." This vaguely reminds me of the movie Memento.

"I have loved you ever since you tattooed me" [with a picture of a sort of Soviet themed logo of some tattoo place called 'New Republic Tattoo', which I googled, and apparently they've got a new logo now. Sort of interesting, in that there's also the magazine the New Republic, which I've mentioned a decent amount in the past in relation to Stephen "Shattered" Glass.. Now I'm wondering how the magazine got its name, not to mention the tattoo shop]

"I wish we could have forgiven each other before you were murdered" Ooh, a secret about murder!! I wonder if I'll ever have a situation like that in my life, or, more broadly, if someone I know will ever get murdered.

"I always wanted to invite you to spend holidays w my family. I knew you lived alone downstairs. I never did and now I never can..." Possibilities: the person died, or the secret writer moved away

"I'm stronger than you think I am I'm not leaving you" [with an icon of a person in a wheelchair] This one sort of makes me think of that upcoming movie with Jake Gyllenhaal where he plays a character whose legs get blown off by a bomb!

"The only thing I've learned from my Ivy League education is how many things in my life are more important." I like this secret. The handwriting sort of reminds me of the handwriting of some people I know. 

I can't believe I'm paying money for this!!

I was watching television just earlier and had watched a couple episodes of Seinfeld. Then I decided that I didn't feel like watching that anymore, so I changed the channel and started watching CNN. It was just a minute or so before 7 pm, so Wolf Blitzer's show was finishing up, although as it turned out, Wolf was off today and none other than Jim Sciutto was filling in for him. So I was sort of disappointed that I had missed Jim Sciutto filling in for Wolf. I think maybe that's a sign that he might get his own show sooner or later, possibly. Chris Cuomo has a new prime time show, it seems, replacing Don Lemon, I believe. Anyways, the 7 pm show started and they had Anderson as well as a few other people out in Texas reporting on the hurricane. Anderson has traded in his trademark black t shirts for polo shirts, it seems. I wonder why he did that. Maybe Wolf will be away tomorrow also and they'll have Jim Sciutto fill in for him again. I wonder if anyone has ever mistakenly called him Jim Prosciutto, since I recently discovered the joy that is prosciutto (a lunch meat). One time in the past, Anderson (I think) mixed up Jim Sciutto and Jim Acosta. Anyways, I do like the semi change in pace that is hurricane coverage compared to coverage of the hot mess that is the government these days.

Secondly, this part of the post can aptly be titled "I can't believe I'm paying money for this!" It's been nearly a full week and I can safely say that I think my classes are on the boring side this semester. Unfortunately. It's a necessarily evil though; the classes are required classes so I don't really have much of a choice about taking them. One of them I dislike more than the other, although both aren't particularly interesting to me. So let me record today's atrocity for posterity. Firstly, I think I should mention that, earlier in the week, I developed an awful blister on my left foot because I wore some new shoes. As a requirement for the laboratory portion of the class, students must wear closed shoes. I'm a big fan of slip on sandals since I'm very lazy and like my feet to have ventilation during the warmer months. So usually I'm wearing whichever pair of flip flops are my preferred ones out of the different pairs I have. Anyways, on that day, I couldn't wear the sandals so I decided to wear the new shoes, since it was raining and my older (more comfortable) shoes have holes in them and my feet would get wet. In short order, the shoes were uncomfortable, and by the time I got to class, I already had a blister. The 30 minutes of walking it took to get there is a separate issue. Immediately after the class was over, I went to Walmart to find some cheap sandals that I could change into. Since it's nearly September, they didn't have a very good selection of sandals, so I had to make do with this pair of pink jelly sandals that didn't exactly fit. But at least they weren't rubbing my heels. They fell off my feet a couple of times when I was walking home, and after I got home, I threw them away. What's even more infuriating is that the only thing we did in the lab portion of the class that day was to do graphing, which does not involve chemicals and is completely safe to do when wearing sandals, or, hell, even barefoot (although it's sort of tacky to go barefoot in public, unless you're at the pool or beach). So I'm resentful over the blister, for one thing. 

That was just the prelude to today. Today I wore sandals initially to get to campus and brought other shoes in a bag to change into later. Which was more tolerable but my heel blister still hurts, so even the comfortable shoes were sort of painful because they were touching it. Today's laboratory lesson was the inane task of designing an experiment to test the absorbency of various paper towel brands. Let me tell you, that was one of the most ridiculous things I've ever spent wasted an hour and a half of my life doing. I'm nearly 20 years old for god's sake!! And I'm being reduced to snipping paper towels into equal sizes and designing a stupid experiment that will most effectively test which brand is the most absorbent. That whole lesson is for the birds. I can't believe I'm paying money for this!!! It was most certainly a 9th grade level assignment. I'm too old for this shit! And to think that I'm paying tuition to do something like that in class!! Ridiculous! I'm not sure it's completely the professor's fault, as the curriculum is probably designed by other people, but I was absolutely infuriated by the end of class. What an inane waste of my time!! After which I decided to treat myself to some emotional eating and I had Chick fil A for lunch. For the record, from personal experience, I can tell you that Bounty brand paper towels are the best. I've noticed that other brands of paper towels take more sheets to clean up spills, and I'd have to go back multiple times to get a new sheet. I don't need to design a stupid fucking experiment to know that. For fuck's sake. Anyways, I really needed to get that out of my system. What's worse is now, for next week, I have to write up a report about the experiment, which I'm already loath to do. I wish I could drop the class because it's boring and inane, but it's required. 

This is why I'm going to become a (future starving) linguist and/or copy editor/journalist. Some may debate about whether linguistics matters, although the question of whether journalism matters I think is more clear cut - it does. So I would like to do something with my life that matters, and wasting my time and brain power designing scientific experiments to test paper towels for some class is not under that category. What a ripoff! Once again, I can't believe I'm paying money for this!!   

I think I will eschew doing my homework at this time and watch the news and/or a Peter Sarsgaard movie, or something. Bleh. 

The big, scary future

(or, typical millennial musings, perhaps?? Even though I would say I just barely qualify as a so-called millennial)
Re: title - it refers to my personal future in general, not the future of this blog. This blog shall continue as long as I have the time, energy and ideas for it. 

As it seems sort of fitting to do with the onset of a new semester upon us, I have ramped up fretting about what I'm going to do with my life in the actually not so far off future - I'm getting old and I gotta start thinking about careers and that kind of thing, as they say.. If I had really been on top of things, which I'm currently not (and sort of wasn't in the past, either), I would've thought about these things like... two years ago, probably, and I would've applied to and ideally gotten accepted into a fancy college and all that... Alas. Not that I exactly want to think about them now, because it's not super fun to consider what I perceive as the not-so-ripe prospects that are out there for me. Not that I've really looked, but I just don't have a lot of confidence in my future/long term success. Not because I'm unintelligent or that kind of thing, but because I don't think there are good/easy to get jobs in the areas that interest me. Future starving linguist here. If only I were interested in computer science and/or engineering! (this is one of the reasons why I would ideally like to date someone who values the humanities, so that we can commiserate about how all the good [as in, high paying and seemingly in high demand] jobs are technology/science related...) Sort of a tangent here, but last semester I had discussed the concept of how fewer women go into science/technology careers with one of my professors and I had said that I sort of feel.. not quite obligated, but like I ought to go into a career like that because there needs to be more women in those careers. Although those things don't really interest me and I don't think that I would enjoy it too much. The conclusion of that conversation was that it's fine and good for other women to have/pursue careers in those areas, but that us particular women (this professor is a sociology professor) don't have the desire to do that and that's fine too.  

On top of the whole all-the-good-jobs-are-in-science-and-technology thing, I semi-non-seriously worry that I'm going to become a drug addict, which, although of course I don't plan on it, could still theoretically happen. Maybe my life will take various turns in the future that lead me to become a drug addict. I'll let you know if that happens. Although, I sort of feel like it would be difficult for me to become a drug addict, at least as far as injecting heroin goes, because the whole concept of shooting up sort of freaks me out. Although I guess I could still snort cocaine or something. I feel like the nonchalance with which I talk about theoretically becoming a drug addict probably would come across as weird to those who are unfamiliar with me and my fascination with drug addicts (or, as the Associated Press wants us to say, people who are addicted to drugs). 

If I do indeed happen to become a drug addict, then so be it, but it will also mean that one of my other worries that I have will have also come true - worrying that other people will be more successful than me. Unless I'm a particularly high-functioning theoretical future drug addict, I would imagine that the various people I know of would be out there being more successful than me in that scenario. Which, even theoretical-becoming-a-drug addict aside, gives me more of a reason to avoid these people as much as possible because I'd rather not be potentially reminded of how other people are out there being more successful than me. So the less I see of/am around/think about them, the better. Which means, actually, that there's a semi-decent excuse to not transfer to [large in-state university] in the quite near future. Not that I'm going to just not go to college anymore, but that I think maybe it would be... more enjoyable/would give me more peace of mind/less stress to go to a different school where fewer of these various people who I assume are out there being more successful than me have gone. Just an idea. I'm not sure if my mother would see the worry about other people being more successful than me as a legitimate reason to not transfer to that particular school. Come to think of it, I sort of had my fill of these various people in high school, which is where I know of them from. Nothing against them (well, most of them), but it's not like I particularly have a large desire to see many of them again. If I were really interested in the particulars of their lives, I'd be on facebook or something. 

I am trying really hard not to think too much about a particular person I know of (maybe I should make that an abbreviation? APPIKO, how's that?) who I'm aware is pursuing (and most definitely much more proactively than I am) the career of journalism. This grates at me even more specifically, because of the subject/career area being the same as something I may actually attempt to try and pursue more. So that stresses me out. Maybe it shouldn't, but it does, so I try not to think about it too much, but here I am, thinking about it. The success of other people in other fields that I don't really have an interest in bothers me less because those aren't things that I'm actively not being as successful as I wish in - I don't really have an interest in being a, say, biochemical engineer or whatever, so it doesn't matter how well other people are doing if they're studying that. This is all really depressing to think about. Maybe I need to be more outgoing and I'd be more successful.. Maybe that's the key.  

Sort of along the lines of pursuing a career in journalism in the future, I've looked up which various internships are available, which at the moment I'm not going to apply for, but may in the future. Some of the places I've considered are: The New Republic (yes, that one), Slate, Washingtonian Magazine/Bethesda Magazine (both magazines focused on local matters), various others but those are the ones that come to mind the most. I liked the wording on Washingtonian's page where it talks about internships: 

Jobs

Editorial Fellowship

Are you caught—or about to be caught—somewhere in that treacherous valley between freshly minted college graduate and full-time journalist, where clips at a magazine like ours are the climbing shoes you need to get up the mountain ahead of you? Or are you at least a rising college senior with a few solid clips and, ideally, previous media internship experience?

Are you looking for the chance to write and report in the nation’s capital? Do you want to be surrounded by professionals who take journalism seriously but also like to have fun and swap ideas?

Does incomprehensible-to-outsiders corporate-speak make your insides twirl as though Lloyd Blankfein himself is stirring them from his throne at Evil HQ? Can you get fired up every day about at least one of our coverage areas: Washington news and politics, dining, lifestyle, travel, etc.?

Are you willing to, some weeks, fact-check stories to the point of unequivocal accuracy and look dead into an editor’s eyes and say “all clear”? Are you willing to check your ego at the door and occasionally work shifts at the reception desk and help out at events, knowing that doing so is just another step on the ladder to greatness?

If this sounds like a fit, we offer an experience that’s low on grunt work and high on opportunity. Graduates of our program have gone on to publications such as Vanity Fair, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, National Geographic, Allure, Smithsonian, and USA Today (and have landed full-time jobs at Washingtonian).

The positions are 40 hours a week for four months in the fall, five months in the spring, and three months in the summer, with possible extensions for standout fellows. The pay is $12.50 per hour.

Primary Duties

• • • Fact-checking and research.
    • Enterprising fellows will find many opportunities to pitch and write for the magazine and the website.
    • Will have the opportunity to meet with editors, writers, and heads of department over the course of the program to discuss their roles at the magazine and their careers in journalism.
    • Position reports to Assistant Editor, Kim Olsen.

I'm not really sure that Sports Illustrated and Entertainment Weekly are quite on the same level of sophistication as Smithsonian magazine or National Geographic... 

The aside aside, it really bothers me, the idea of people I know of being more (as in, decently more) successful than me. Or rather, you could look at it as being that the idea of me being a failure bothers me. But I like the phrasing of 'other people being more successful than me' better. That sort of conveys that, maybe I won't necessarily be a complete failure, but I won't necessarily be as successful as I think I should ideally be either (compared to other people). So there's a bit more nuance to that phrasing, I think. Although maybe we could broadly expand that idea to the concept of insecurity about myself. Maybe I shouldn't try to psychoanalyze myself, by the way. It's never particularly fun, I don't think. 

And to top all of this off, I should probably try to meet people in person if I really want to date someone, because I've been online dating for over a year now and I haven't been on one single actual date in person. However, like I've thought on multiple occasions, if it's this difficult to find someone worthwhile to date, then maybe I'm just better off staying single and watching Peter Sarsgaard movies, and that kind of thing. 

To close, a non sequitur (sort of - I would say that insecurity drove him to fabricate and me worrying about other people being more successful than me is sort of a facet of insecurity, although it won't cause me to fabricate): If Stephen Glass had a blog (now, or ~20 years ago, or both!), what would he write about? Or, to specify, if he had a blog that's sort of similar to mine in that it's about my various thoughts, what would his thoughts be that he'd write about on his blog?? 

Postsecret review 11

Really late on this one, almost too late, but here it is. I think I'll cut myself some slack because I was suffering from a cold this week. 

"I work from home for 'health reasons', but it's actually so I can go nude all the time." This one... sort of baffles me. Maybe it makes sense to people who live by themselves, or with their significant other. Otherwise it'd be pretty weird to wander around the house naked if you're living with other people. 

"My BFF his his AIDS because he didn't want to be fired. He died on a 'sick day'" I think this is actually the first secret about AIDS that I can remember reading, so that's something.. 

"I cry whenever an argument isn't going my way (works every time)" That's sort of childish. 

"I '[facebook like icon]' posts from super-conservative Facebook pages in the hopes that occasionally, one will appear in front of one of my many super-liberal 'Friends' just to annoy them." That's yet another passive aggressive thing to do, like a number of secrets have confessed in the past. 

"Christians elected Trump. Now I no longer believe." Well, that's as good a reason as any to apostatize, I guess. (over a picture with the bible verse "Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you" underlined)

"[a secret seemingly written in the IPA characters, which I sort of know, but the handwriting isn't so good so I can only make out 'I contain' although there is another word, over a picture labeled Walt Whitman, who was possibly a transcendentalist? ... actually, on second glance, I think the third word is 'multitudes'...]"

"I'm so proud of you for beating this shit. You're better off without it." (over a picture of some kind of drug, it looks like. Crystal meth??)

"I think He is watching us slowly destroy the LIFE He gave us" I guess if you're religious, this is a thought that you might have. I personally can't recall ever having a thought like this, but some of the thoughts that I do have are along the lines of "What would it be like if I became a drug addict?" or "I wonder if I'll get murdered" or "It would be just awful to have one's legs blown off by a bomb" or "[location] is where you can get the cheapest Big Mac that I'm aware of" 

"I'll never let go. Your hands and your heart are my home." I assume this person means it sort of more figuratively. Also, naturally, I thought of the movie Titanic... 

"I am happily married but I, recently, googled my ex boyfriend. I found out he died. I am surprised by how much his death is bothering me." I think this is understandable. I also like the style of writing of this secret, even though it's only a few sentences. If, say, theoretically, I found out that a certain someone who I really don't know barely anything about, had died, I'd probably be fairly sad about it even though I only talked to him like once and that was to ask (weirdly, probably, to him at least) to touch his very blonde hair. So let's hope that he's alive and well, doing whatever it is that he's doing, which I don't know specifically because I don't know him personally, I just know of him. 

"I wish I would get as sick as the patients on House [MD, a tv show about doctors] just to see who would visit me in the hospital." This is an interesting secret, although I'm not quite sure that I share this person's thoughts. I don't exactly think that I'd like to get as sick as the patients on House MD, even if I would get to find out who would visit me in the hospital.

"I steal the coupon section from your paper every Sunday before you get up." I really wonder about a) the motivations behind this and b) the relationship between the author and the person whose coupons are being stolen, since that would provide some much-needed context.

"I'm soooo afraid I've missed all my chances... and will end up alone & lonely" (with a chart showing a graph of age vs "chances of finding my true love & soulmate") 
A) "alone & lonely" is pretty redundant. B) the graph drawn isn't labeled with any numbers on either axis, which to me seems like a glaring omission. That wouldn't get you a good grade at all in math class. Plus, age is put on the y axis and I think it should go on the x axis, as that axis is for time and age is a kind of time.. I don't even like math but I know some things about how graphs are supposed to made properly.

"I tell all the kids I babysit that I turn into a mermaid at night. They always believe me." That's kind of cute, actually, although I personally have no patience for taking care of small children, even if I were getting paid for it.

"I never thought I would be able to pin it down so precisely... ... but I've realized that today is the last day of my childhood." I wonder what particular thing made the writer decide that that particular day was the last day of their childhood. It could be any number of things. 

"My wife spent our entire marriage wishing she had married someone else" I assume this was written by the husband (or possibly other wife, I guess), which made me think that it'd be kind of weird to tell your spouse "I wish I'd married someone else"... that seems like the kind of thing that you maybe wouldn't want them to be aware of. But what do I know, I've never been married. 

"This is NOT my husband's foot. But - woops - that one sure does belong to me!" (over a picture of two feet) I'm going to assume this secret alludes to an affair going on. Some affairs are worse than other affairs, I'd say. I wrote a post about that somewhere in the past.

"I promised I would'nt tell." (over a picture of an outline of a body) I guess you could make a conjecture that this one alludes to murder, or something. What bothers me more is the incorrect apostrophe placement in "wouldn't"... 

This week's secrets actually seemed fairly interesting, a nice mixed bag of different topics covered. I think these seemed to be slightly better than some in past weeks. It's good that I got to this before it was too late or I would've missed the second week in a row. 

I decided to check the Postsecret twitter account as well, just to see if anything interesting had been tweeted, and the guy who runs Postsecret retweeted a tweet saying "Writing 20 minutes about a positive experience dramatically improves happiness. Your brain re-lives it while writing... and while reading it" which I thought was kind of interesting... I wonder what kinds of positive experiences I could spend time writing about for this blog. I think I already sort of covered one recently, about going to see the eclipse. And I guess this sort of reassures me that it's not too... weird to occasionally go back and read my own various blog posts. I hope that doesn't make me a narcissist. Also, I figure that if I'm going to put as much effort as I do into writing for this blog that very few people probably actually read, then maybe I should try to get a job as a real writer, meaning that I get paid for it, since I certainly seem to not really mind writing, at least the various stuff that I write for this blog. There might be stuff out there that I wouldn't exactly enjoy writing though. Like if I had to watch Johnny Depp movies and review them, I don't think I'd really enjoy that as much as I enjoy being able to decide completely on the topics I decide to blog about. Here, it's all up to me, and I like that. If I want to write half my posts about Peter Sarsgaard, then I can do that if I so desire. And so on. 

Eclipse trip

I figured that this probably warranted a post about it, and I realized that I hadn't made a new post for over a week, which sort of surprised me. Plus I missed last week's Postsecret review. Oh well. 

Anyways, the eclipse was going to happen shortly so I had the fortune to travel down to South Carolina to see it. The eclipse itself was strange. It was so weird. Something else. I would say that it was worth it to make the trip to see a complete eclipse, and not just 80% of an eclipse that I would've seen had I not traveled. 

Traveling more into the south also reaffirmed my mindset that I'm happy to live where I do and I don't want to move to the south. Lots of rednecks compared to here, I would say. The roads are kind of bad but you can go really fast, so I guess it's a bit of a trade off. Thankfully, no car accidents or kidnappings occurred on the trip and it went pretty smoothly. 

The trip was also really good for my Peter Sarsgaard dvd collection. I got: Garden State, Rendition, Flightplan, and Kinsey. Unfortunately I don't think I saw any copies of An Education or Boys Don't Cry, which are the movies I want to watch the most. I also got the Jason Bourne trilogy, and Dot the i which has James D'Arcy in it and which I had been wanting to watch. I didn't think to check and see if they had Requiem for a Dream. In addition to the dvds, I got a book that I wanted to have a copy of, and all this for only $10. Thrift stores are great, aren't they? I probably should go back to some of the local ones sooner or later and see if there are any more Peter Sarsgaard movies to be had, or other stuff that's a good deal and that I would like to have. 

Although Big Macs are cheaper in the south, I don't think that it's quite worth moving down there for the ability to drive really fast on the highways and get Big Macs for under $6. Those kinds of things come along with hordes of rednecks and conservatives, compared to the amount of those kinds of people who live in the area where I currently live. Being down there made me wonder if perhaps I'm too cosmopolitan, although even if by whoever's standards, I am, I don't really care. If you're "too cosmopolitan" but live amongst people who are just as cosmopolitan as you are, it doesn't really matter. 

For some reason I keep thinking about the upcoming movie where Jake Gyllenhaal plays a character whose legs get blown off by a bomb. It would be quite unfortunate for one's legs to get blown off or otherwise separated from the rest of your body. I'm betting that the movie is going to be sappy and inspirational (although I think what would be really interesting is a movie about the same subject matter, but that's not sappy and inspirational, and is instead depressing, like Requiem for a Dream, and maybe ends with the main character killing himself because he can't cope with having had his legs get blown off, maybe by a terrorist attack or maybe in a war as a soldier...), which isn't really my thing, plus the whole idea of legs getting blown off is... unsettling. I think it would be awful to have your legs get blown off, although I guess if it happens you'd just have to deal with it and get used to living without real legs, although maybe you'd get prosthetic legs. And if you really couldn't cope with it, I guess you could commit suicide like in my theoretical movie idea. So at the moment I'm thinking that I probably won't see it in theaters, but perhaps later I'll watch it on Netflix or online, or rent a dvd of it. I wonder what it was like for Jake Gyllenhaal to play that character and how he felt about the role. 

One of the dvds I got has Peter Sarsgaard and Jake Gyllenhaal in it, so I might watch that one first. It might be interesting if they ever star in another movie together; right now they've only been in two together and both of them aren't particularly recent. I wish Peter Sarsgaard would lend his voice to a GPS company or something like that, so that you could set your digital device voices to his. That would be quite something! I just like to hear him say things. 

Hopefully I get to this week's Postsecret review sometime before the week is over and I won't be able to do it. We'll see. Somehow I caught an illness so now I'm sick and coughing and spitting up stuff, which is better than just repeatedly swallowing it and having it continue to line the innards of your throat. And I'm listening to New Dawn Fades and wondering if it's too depressing to have as my song on Tinder. Not that it really matters too much. I think it's a better song choice than some of the crappy songs I've seen on other people's profiles.