Living for the clouds...

Well, today it is supposed to be cloudy with a high of 73 degrees. You guys have no idea how happy this makes me.  It has been hot here.  I mean REALLY hot for the last few weeks.  Eighties and nineties hot.  With humidity.  Annoyingly, several showers per day, sweaty, yucky HOT.
 
Enough said.
 
But, today... today is going to be more like the Portland I know and love.  It is going to be cloudy!! Yaaaa!  And cool!!  YAAAAA!!  I am so happy just thinking about the rest of today, I don't even want to go back to bed and it's not even 6am yet!
 
Franz and I have been continuing the Buffy-a-Thon.  We are up to the fourth episode of Season Three.  He watched two and three last night, and a good time was had by all.  He is so smart, though.  He knew Faith was coming before the episode "Faith, Hope and Trick" even got to the opening credits!! Franz is often scary smart.  Yet another in the long list of things I love about the boy.
 
Anyway, I have read a bunch of books since the last time I posted.  Let's see... I finished "Fight Club".  I read "Choke" by the same author as "Fight Club".  I read a book about the life of Buffy the Vampire Slayer series creator/ writer/ director/ executive producer Joss Whedon.  The thing that I didn't know was that he also wrote the screenplay for "Toy Story"... and got nominated for an Oscar for it.  He also was a writer on the show "Roseanne".  He even wrote for the movie Aliens 4... even though he says they destroyed his script after he gave it to them.  I learned alot about the back and forth behind the scenes with this book.  In movies, screenwriters basically have no control over what they wrote.  But television is a great deal better for a writer.  I guess if I ever decide to write screenplays, I will write for TV.  Don't hold your breath, though.
 
I also read another book about Buffy the Vampire Slayer... about the cast, and the history and a synopsis of each episode.  It was pretty good, but not very well researched.  Also, my studies of travel books about Canada continue and I have listened to a few of my French tapes.
 
Hmmm... what else?  I watched a movie the other day called "Secretary".  It was strange and interesting all at the same time.  And this is the second time I have seen it!  It is about a woman who is a "cutter" (meaning she grew up with a psychological disorder that causes her to cut herself to avoid the internal numbness she feels when she is under mental and emotional pain and/or stress) who grows up, gets out of the mental institution- that she was put in after inadvertantly cutting herself too deeply- and gets a job as a secretary. The woman is played by Maggie Gyllenhall.  And the boss is played by James Spader.  Anyway, the boss turns out to be a barely held-together domination fetishist.  And, gradually, she becomes his submissive.  Relax, it's not like I was watching porn or anything like that... well, at least not hard core porn.  Really, very soft core porn if I am understanding the distinctions correctly, I suppose. 
 
Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about that movie these last few days.  I can't understand it.  I can see some parts of it.  Granted, she doesn't mind being spanked because she is used to using pain as a means of gaining pleasure (or at least, of escaping numbness).  That part, I get.  But how do you go from that, to needing to be controlled by someone else?  Everytime I think I almost have a handle on it, the concept floats away from me- ephemeral and lost.  Like a mirage... the closer you get, the farther away it gets. And the funny thing about it is, in the end, I feel like she was in control of him.  The way she sort of poked and prodded him into loving her, needing her.  She had such a bare understanding of what he needed, and she gave it to him relentlessly. 
 
And I guess that is one of the things that fascinates me about her.  How she understood the whacked out things he needed so easily... almost as second nature.  How many of us, in our supposedly "normal" relationships, intuitively understand what our partners need on a day to day basis without asking?  Without error?  How many of us bother to pay that close of attention?  You know, not relying on the old fallback, "Well, I'm not a mind reader!"  She never would have had to say this.  Now, granted, she was obsessed with pleasing him.  And you can't always spend your life like that.  In fact, it is probably not healthy.
 
But there is a certain clarity in it that you have to admire. 
 
And an unbelievable amount of trust. 
 
You have to trust that if you give yourself over 100% to meeting the needs of this other person, that they will be there to meet your needs in exactly the same way.  Because if you really give yourself over 100%, you don't have any room left to take care of yourself.  You have to trust the other person to do that part for you in return. 
 
How often does that ever happen?  Us, with our normal relationships... we have to have this internal dialogue "does he or doesn't he?"  Protect ourselves from heartache by not expecting too much, or giving too much without getting an equal amount back in return, keeping a constant eye to the balance of power and the politics of love. 
 
Them, with the simplicity of their desire only to please each other. Without reservation. 
 
I know it's whacked out... but isn't there something to be learned here?
 
 
Well, that's all for now.  I hope everyone is happy and healthy.
 
Love to all,
 
Sherry