Oh, hai, bloggy....

So the url of this blog is "Lord Byron's Luggage." This used to be the blog title, as well, and back then, it was ever so appropriate for my purposes. I was chronicling my adventures in a fairytale city that tasted like meringue and melted on my tongue with that same sticky sweetness, the lightness, the airy, can't-get-enough-ness of Edinburgh.

Anyway, the title/URL combo came from a Warren Zevon song, called "Lord Byron's Luggage." I liked the opening line:

Lord Byron had a lot of luggage; he took it when he traveled far and wide.

  I don't have a lot of physical luggage. I travel light enough that, when I arrived at the airport in Edinburgh at about 6 AM, having just undergone the undocumented flight from hell, the woman sent to greet the exchange students was shocked. A backpack and what Homeless Dan calls my "tiny suitcase." It did not occur to me that, for six months of living in a new country, I might need more than six shirts. (It didn't occur to me because, after all, I did not. Seriously. Look at the photos. I am constantly wearing the same six shirts layered in different ways. In every single photo.)

But just the same, I had some luggage. I was traveling to a new country, escaping some really awful failed friendships, one romantic misstep that seemed, at the time, particularly brutal, and a grandfather who was about to die. Let's not sugarcoat that, because it happened. He died three or four days after I got to the city.

So I spent six months living in a fairy tale. Falling in love with strangers who would get to stay as perfect as James Dean, wandering around giant gardens, drinking for the first time in my life, hanging out with Robert and Susannah and Mhairi and Jason and Cara and Kevin, and Amandine, and ohgod, that Benedict. I miss Will almost all the time, and Beth, too. I wrote more while I was in Scotland than I have at any other point in my life. I also played more Snood and had more insomniac meanders through the really sketchy parts of town than I ever hope to again. As I told Ben one night, when I ran into him with his roommate at 3 AM on Prince's Street, "My legs, they just won't settle."

(For those of you who wonder where my confusion with Ben lay, I met his roommate and her response was, "OH! ASHLEY! It's so fantastic to finally meet you!")

But as I came home from Scotland, my blog became more about appreciating that, then I stopped writing. Then I started writing again. But it was a mishmash of things. Quotes from Alice Hoffman, pictures of dresses and Scottish islands. Esoteric bull about scattering my grandfather's ashes. Then I moved to DC and didn't write for the four months I was there. And why would I? That was an awful experience, and I had no time to sleep, let alone write about the grind of being Alicia's little wife. Then I met Homeless Dan, and I moved home, and I wrote about movies for awhile. Then I did not write for a long time, during which my life has been utter turmoil and upsets and plot twists and "When did that happen? And how old am I again?" This was the "Typing Gibberish" period.

And now, here I sit, at yet another crossroads, and I'm thinking about all that luggage. All that nostalgia and the things I keep just for me, those things that don't fit in my tiny suitcase, and that don't even really fit in my life anywhere, anymore, and I keep thinking, how am I holding onto these things and why can I not let go for the life of me? My jaw hurts from holding so tight. (I mean that literally. I often cannot unclench my jaw.) My knuckles can turn white and my knees can collapse, and my entire world can shrink so that nothing will fit, but I keep carrying these things, finding space for them, making space for them.

I love the things that are just mine, but I'm not sure how to keep them without missing out on forward momentum.

A note of justice

Just double-checked. 127 is nominated for Best Original Score. AND IT SHOULD WIN SO HARD THEY FEEL IT IN 2012!

Also, once again... DIDO?

127-- OMIGOD THAT ROCK JUST FELL ON HIM -- erm, spoilers ahead

Blogging 127 Hours. Because Danny Boyle is good for nothing if not for a sense of surreal immediacy. (Crawling babies, anyone? Also, anyone feeling a craving some Shallow Grave...ing? Terrible, I know.)


Ten minutes: Someone just give this movie the best picture Oscar already? Also, there's a reason Danny Boyle is one of my two favorite directors. Since when does Amber Tamblyn still exist?

Twenty minutes: Dear Danny Boyle:  I knew it was going to happen, but it terrified me when it did

 One minute later: I HAVE SYMPATHY PAINS FOR ARON RALSTON

Thirty-seven minutes: Now I'm crying on the bus. WELL DONE DANNY!

Forty-one minutes: Thirsty. GIVE ME WATER. WANT GATORADE. CanIhaveit? Also, congratulations on finding an unflattering angle to shoot Mr. Franco from.

Forty-three minutes: No. Chilled urine is nothing like sauvignon blanc

Forty-five minutes: Idea strikes him. Stomach turns... Even more than at the thought of drinking pee.

Forty-eight minutes: I think the thing with the contacts bothers me more than it should, only because I know how helpless I feel when I don't have mine.

Forty-nine minutes: He's dating Fleur? I guess she got over Chuck Bass awful fast. Also, didn't she just marry Bill Weasley?
Fifty-three minutes: James Cameron is in the house

Fifty-five minutes: Wait, was it even raining? At least he's keeping his spirits up somehow.

Fifty-seven minutes: Lesson number 127? TELL PEOPLE WHERE YOU WILL BE. Ferrealz, yo.

ONE HOUR: We have punctured skin. 

Sixty-one minutes: I'm having a Dumb and Dumber moment.... "This tastes like piss"

Sixty-three minutes: "If you keep singing Phish, you're never going to get a girlfriend." Somebody please tell GuitarHero to see this movie.

Seventy minutes: I LOVE THIS MOVIE. Even if you hate this rock.

Seventy-three minutes: Wait, since when does Dido still exist?

Seventy-four minutes: We have broken bone.

Seventy-six minutes: Is this nominated for best score? It really deserves to be. OMIGOD I MIGHT PEE MYSELF

Seventy-seven minutes: Release. Though it hardly feels like freedom. Mere survival is all.

Eighty-four minutes: Yup, tears again. Can you imagine being the family that found him? Can you imagine being him, upon being found?

Eighty-eight minutes: Oh, hey, @RealAronRalston. I'm glad you tell people where you will be now. And stopped singing Phish

That's why it's called acting

Because Jennifer Lawrence (of Winter's Bones) is the cheerleader sort. But my god, watch the girl gut a squirrel or take on an entire family of criminals who killed her father.

That movie was heartrending. In one scene, I thought a character was whimpering as something terrible happened, but as it got louder (and I thought, "This is real, this person is really, truly upset") I realized -- nope, that noise is coming from my own throat. I can't exactly tell you how gorgeously acted this movie was and as discussed with ma mere in the aftermath, it's a hard movie to recommend. Not because it isn't excellent.

It is excellent. Beyond excellent.

It's just heavy. Dark. Deadly. It's not a movie that you can say you enjoyed. (And if you did, uh, you should probably get help.) I told Mom I thought that she (Jennifer Lawrence) was going to have a long career and Mom agreed before remembering that she is, in fact, the Angel of Death.

(Jeff Buckley, Heath Ledger, Earthfest, and multiple fish--all blood on my mother's hands.)

So knock on wood for that, yeah?

Though it is interesting to me if you look at Winter's Bones and True Grit. Both about determined young women who set out to find someone (either their father or their father's killers). Sure, True Grit is about avenging her father's death and Winter's Bone is about finding proof that her father is dead, but they both feature women clinging to survival and purpose in a world run by men. One of the women in Winter's Bone asks Ree, "Don't you have any men that can do this for you?" and Ree very matter-of-factly responds, "No." In the end, it is women who step up, the men posturing endlessly and purposelessly at each other in hopes that one will back down or the other will act. It is a man's world, yes, and it is harder to make your way in the world of Winter's Bone if you are a woman, but if you can, if you don't collapse into insanity, well, it's because you've got true grit. Sorry, wrong movie.

In True Grit, we are told that it is Rooster Cogburn who is a man of true grit, but in the end, the only character who proves she has what it takes is Mattie Ross. Granted, in the end, the men save the day, but that is because Mattie Ross is a fourteen year old girl. There's only so much that grit can do against brute strength and let's be clear that a fourteen year old girl firing a gun on a grown man takes grit. A grown man taking a fourteen year old girl hostage takes... well, not that much, as a matter of fact.

I loved these movies and I loved their female leads. I'm nothing like either of them and cannot relate at all to their specific experiences of the world, but I totally appreciated seeing strong females -- and to see them be so young, and to persevere through so much was magnificent. Both of them teenaged girls, abandoned in one way or another by their fathers, seeking to rectify an unjust situation, despite the men around them proclaiming it too dangerous for a woman (let alone a young girl!) and too futile for a man -- really their own cowardice overwhelming them.

And then there was Natalie Portman, who, don't get me wrong, worked her ass off in Black Swan. But I'll get to that later.

You got a friend in me (all of you)

Last year, the frontrunner was Up. It was okay, but let's be clear: The Secret of Kells was infinitely more beautiful and unusual.

This year is a bit of a toss-up, between Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist. I've seen two of the three, but I've not seen The Illusionist. I'm dying to. And there's a really good reason that my old followers might know.

Most of the movie is set in the 'Burgh. I saw a still from it and I knew those spires, those cobblestones, it felt like home. And it looks sweet. That seems to be the theme this year with the animated films. All three are really, really sweet. Toy Story 3 and The Illusionist are also all about loss of something, childhood or an era.

Meanwhile, How To Train Your Dragon is funny, smart, and impeccable. I haven't seen the last one yet, but it's set in my second home, my British home. Toy Story is funny, smart, and plays on your nostalgia. It's the best job Tom Hanks has done in ages, and it's not afraid to be devastatingly tragic. (Happy ending, though!) It wasn't made for kids; it was made for my generation. "Ok, guys, you're graduating college now. Be GROWNUPS!"

I'm just so sad about having to choose a favorite eventually.

Who is Evelyn Salt?

And does anyone really care?

Some Notes on Rabbit Hole

1. I'd have nominated Aaron Eckhart.
2. I wish Nicole Kidman's face could move.
3. I want to hug that kid.

Carry on.