how much do i love the oscars?

so much.


it is silly how much they inspire me. and every time i watch i vow to be there next year. (i'm thinking original screenplay nominee. or documentary short. or on the arm of a celebrity (actually, scratch that, i would much rather be there of my own merit. i am not an arm-candy kind of girl, i don't think. it is the oscars, though...)).

however, this year, i am more antsy than ever. i think it is because i am not "where i want to be." i get mildly defensive every time a well-intentioned acquaintance inquires "so, what are you doing now?" because i am doing the same things i did when i was 17. it is like the last five years didn't happen, except that i have two pieces of paper saying i went to college collecting dust in a drawer. watching those little gold statues being bestowed to masters of cinema is not leaving me feeling inspired. instead, i feel a little bit like a failure.

so, i think i need to make some promises to myself. the promise to sacrifice security for fulfillment. the promise to make time to be creative. the promise to expand some of my ideas.

i have had a crazy penchant to move to new york the last week. however, i hate the notion that things are only happening in big cities. come on, we also create things here in the suburbs of the southwest, people. but maybe i will. maybe, i'll be impulsive and bold and be gone by next week. like i said, this year's academy awards is making me antsy.

and can i just say, i kind of consider james franco a nemesis. i want to go to more school than him and then stand on a pile of degrees and stick out my tongue at him. i find him stunningly attractive, sure, but i am also embarrassingly jealous of all the things he does. he makes me feel lazy.

the last time i was in las vegas

I have been waxing existential as I contemplate the last time I was in Las Vegas.

It was October 2010, and for the first time I was visiting the pleasure paradise in the middle of the Nevada desert without my family, but with four single, of-age sheilas.

May I say it was a much different experience.

The second night, after avoiding going to see the male revue "The Thunder from Down Under," I strolled solo up and down the infamous strip. (An aside on my thoughts about "The Thunder from Down Under": The girls really worked hard persuading me to attend by assuring the the men kept their underwear on and that they guys liked being looked at just as much as the ladies loved ogling them. They convinced me to buy a ticket, but even with the ticket in hand I was scheming about how to get out of going, which I did by offering to watch-over a hung over companion who had to bail out of the taxi on the way to the show because she was sure she was going to hurl (which she did, but we did make it to a nearby bathroom before the chunks flew). And sure, I probably would have found the muscle-bound Australian hunks delightful to stare at, but I just feel that objectifying men is just as bad as objectifying women, and therefore, found it the height of hypocrisy. So, I got the sicky a taxi back to our hotel, but I chose to stay out under the brigh neon lights of the city.)

But back to this walk I was taking down the strip. I was staring at the high-rise hotels and the imitations of nearly every major destination in Italy (The Venetian--Venice, Ceasar's Palace--Imperial Rome, The Palazzo--just your general Italian theme, The Belaggio-high-class Lombardian society (although they do have a great little Siena-themed cafe) and having been to these places I was massively unimpressed.), and just found the Las Vegas Strip the epitome of inauthenticity. Because going to the New York, New York Hotel/Casino is nothing like the real city (bagels aren't as good, people aren't as crazy), and I will not go belabor the fact that although the fake San Marco's Square is a stunning work of forgery, it lacks the aura of the real place (oh, Walter Benjamin, why do you haunt my life?!). I also will not rant excessively how Caesar's Palace is more of a tribute to Bernini's Baroque Rome than Caesar's Imperial city.

But I will say, I really wanted out of there. I wanted to be real. I started doubting every person I met, especially the man who claimed to be a millionaire from Dubai (I actually didn't speak with this fellow, but some of the other gals were telling me about him). It was a horrible state to be in. I find a Vegas with the slogan "Just be yourself, and have a good time," more appealing than the current Vegas "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas."

Perhaps, the highlight of this solitary walk (which really wasn't solitary I was part of a steady stream of tourists from all over sauntering along the sidewalks) was seeing a middle-aged Hispanic man with a cowboy hat standing near an outdoor escalator playing his accordion. I gave him all of the change in my pocket because he felt like the most real thing on all of Las Vegas Boulevard.

denver

have i ever expressed my immense love for denver?

i love that place.

i believe i spent just less than twenty-four hours in the city last summer (just enough time for its reputation to remain pristine in my mind), and it was magical. i started looking up studio apartments near the capitol, assured that i could always get a job as an unskilled laborer.

i used to be a little bit uppity about denver boasting its "mile-high" status. i mean, payson is just about 500 feet short of a mile high, and i don't know where the city is measured from. it is perhaps possible my house is a mile high and you don't see me bragging about it. (but then again it is possible my house falls short of the mark and that it really is remarkable to be a mile high.)

nonetheless, a car with a colorado license plate passed me last night and i can't get denver out of my head.