Worth a shot

Here's something I've been compiling in my head for a few days. I finally had a chance to start putting it down while I was in the doctor's office waiting room this morning. Please, settle back now and enjoy...


Attention Jake Gyllenhaal: Ten Reasons Why You Should Marry Me

1. You won't have to bend nearly double to kiss me. All it will take is a gentle dip of your head. In fact, all of our parts will line up perfectly. You could grab my ass without dislocating your shoulder. And while my self-esteem may not be exemplary, I do know that my ass is very much worth grabbing. Trust me.


2. There is no ex for you to be compared with in my past. In any department. No matter what you say or do, it's all new to me and not something to be submitted to my own subconscious grade scale.


3. I always carry my own damn purse, which is not suitcase-sized, and when I don't feel like carrying one, I leave it at home. Plus, I've been known to carry the wallet of my male companion in said purse upon request, so he wouldn't have to sit on a lump while driving or in a movie theater seat.


4. I don't find you the least bit boring. Going to clubs holds no appeal to me. My idea of a perfect evening is to spend it curled up on the couch with you, just talking, or watching a movie together. Walks on the beach are also highly ranked. Hell, walks anywhere would be great, and my legs are as long as yours, so you don't have to worry about adjusting your stride to accommodate mine.


5. Your work and mine will never cause scheduling conflicts. Actually, once I get to California I have no idea what work I'll be doing, unless I can get a writing grant. But I am free to travel with you when desired, or stay at home and water the plants. Either way, I'll take loving care of Atticus so you can concentrate on your job.


6. Speaking of dependents, I currently have none of the human variety. I am more than willing to change that, granted the appropriate partner (i.e. yourself). Our children are statistically assured to be tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed angels like their Daddy. Just do a Punnett square if you don't believe me. (I know that looks aren't everything, but this is a nice bonus.)


7. Should you, however, be in the mood for romping with children immediately, my nephew and your niece are close enough in age to make terrific playmates for each other. He's a good-natured, happy baby who loves male voices.


8. That need of yours, to have an audience, will always be satisfied with genuine interest, occasional eye rolling, frequent warm indulgence and hearty laughter. I'm already doing all of that, because there's no one and nothing I love to watch more than you.


9. You love to cook. I hate to cook. And we both hate the taste of cilantro. You can order me around the kitchen, or order me to get the hell out while you conjure whatever culinary magic your heart desires. I will eat anything you serve, willingly, eagerly, with lust in my eyes and appreciative noises issuing from my throat. Umm.


10. My absolute non-celebrity will make our couplehood spectacularly uninteresting to the tabloids and press. No one is going to ask you questions about me while you're trying to promote a movie, unless they happen to actually know and care about both of us, which is unlikely. Of course, paparazzi are still going to chase you, because you're so damn photogenic, but half of them will probably mistake me for your sister anyway.

All photos: IHJ.

Laundry list

I never imagined I could be so at home in a completely new place as I was this past weekend with my beloved friend, Charlene. She made me feel welcome, in her home and in her town, and it was the most I've relaxed in a good many years. Thank you, my separated-at-birth other sister, for the vacation I so desperately needed.

Charlene, me, and Powder

From the moment Charlene approached me at the airport, and I burst into tears, I knew the trip was more than worth the effort. It wasn't the last time I wept on her, either, poor woman. Such relief at finally meeting my friend was not something I had expected, but I'm an emotional basket case anyway. Together we laughed, we cried, we squeeed. It was everything I wanted it to be.

Naturally, while I've been escaping from my escapism, events have continued to unfold in Jakedom. He's very inconsiderate sometimes.

Okay, I admit: the foremost development on this front isn't of Jake's doing. Jake Watch have officially announced their impending departure from the blogosphere. And this I had to read while in a hotel lobby, because contrary to what the hotel's online profile stated, there was not, in fact, wireless internet in every room. So there I sat, leaking from the eyes and sucking back snot as I read the kind well-wishings of JW loyalists whose names hadn't been seen around in many months. Jake Watch has been more than a destination; it is an institution, one that Jake and his "people" would have done well to appreciate while they had the chance. But hey, britpopbaby and Prophecy Girl weren't doing it for Jake, they were doing it for themselves and us. Nothing good lasts forever. I salute them.

Someone at San Francisco online alternative zine BeyondChron managed to echo all the frustration that has followed me since the first mainstream Rendition reviews appeared. Marc Norton, a hotel bellman by profession, writes

[T]hat is the point of this movie -- to make you think. That is exactly what all the luke-warm and negative reviewers don't want to do, and don't want you to do.

Yes, I said I felt somewhat unsatisfied by the film myself, but I can now confirm, having seen it a third time, that it does indeed get better with every viewing. It probably should embarrass me to confess this, but I still get a chill every time Isabella El-Ibrahimi shrieks at Corrine Whitman to just tell her that her husband is okay. True, some people get a similar chill when they hear fingernails scraped down a chalkboard, but the moment works for me, and I didn't think it would. Anyway, even if you skip Norton's review, please check out his link to an article from the New York Times about a real-life "war on terror" whistleblower whose efforts prove that perhaps Douglas Freeman's actions were not so far-fetched after all.

Let's see, then we had Jake and Reese attending a Halloween party in the most pathetic non-costumes imaginable. These are people with money. The lack of any effort on their part strongly suggests that either the invitation or the choice to attend came at the last second. That's always the way I want my party guests to be represented to the public at large. Hooray for Hollywood.

What else? Jake's getting down to work on Brothers, and now there's a whisper from Variety linking him to something called Nailed that would also star Jessica Biel. That title connotes such potential, I'm afraid to scoff. It's almost a wet dream unto itself.

Oh, then my internet provider irritated the hell out of me by failing to pick up the new DNS record for IHeartJakeMedia following their domain expiration a few days ago. I'm way behind on downloading Jake images, and that didn't help matters. Things are finally in place as they should be, but it will take me a whole weekend to catch up.

Jake hung out with Robert Downey, Jr. one night. Then he and Reese got video papped on a beach somewhere. Reese appears at one point to be picking something from Jake's teeth. Very romantic. In the past, such intrusive video would have set off my fiercest protective instinct, but the fact that they've probably been together for several months and managed to avoid such paparazzi run-ins for as long as suited their needs leaves me feeling somewhat less sympathetic. And I hate that I feel that way.

I want to continue to love Jake in the way I always have. More than want, I need it; it's something to occupy a dangerously obsessive mind, one that will turn to far less benign thoughts in the absence of this diversion. Most of all, I don't want to come here sounding like a bitter rejected fifteen-year-old, and I'm afraid that's exactly how I sound.


I can't swear off Jake right now. I fear it would literally kill me. Especially when photos like this one make my heart ache.

Photos: Peggy Mitchell, IHJ.

Departing

Remember, I'm going to be away for a few days starting tomorrow. So if I don't come in to post something, it's not proof that I've slit my wrists. Honest.

This is a poem I wrote for my very treasured friend, Charlene, back in April. I can't imagine anything more appropriate to leave you with while she and I meet for the first time and celebrate a friendship that we both owe to none other than Jake Gyllenhaal.




What does love mean?
Who decides when it's love
and when it's something else?

Can you tell me it's not love
just because I've never met him,
never had a conversation,
never stood in his presence?

Because I can't touch him,
can't hold him,
can't comfort him when things overwhelm?

Because I've never watched him walk away
and wondered if he'd ever come back?

Does love have qualifications?

Don't speak these other words to me--
infatuation, idolization, fandom, lust!
--and condescend to tell me that they describe what I feel

My love is as real as any other
A living, hoping, screaming thing

You cannot squeeze my feelings into one of your neatly labeled boxes just to make yourself feel better

So you, who say I do not love:
can you say to me that you do?
And how does it feel?

Do you think about him at the most random moments
(what funny thing would he say about this? or
I wonder if he's happy right now)?

Do you cry, and laugh, and sigh for him?

Do you wish him all the joys, big and small, that life may hold?

Do you marvel at the beauty of the human being he is?

Love and reason are strangers to each other
Rationality and emotion, only passing acquaintances

And all this pain,
and craziness,
and euphoria
that propels me through my waking hours
However irrational, however unreasonable
However misunderstood and derided by you
Is as precious to me as any secret
and as real as any truth

This is my heart
and it loves

Photo: IHJ.