August: Osage County

"Grandma, I can't find a job. There's virtually nothing out there."

"Well do you think anyone will want to hire you the way you look and sound right now? You've got bronchitis. You've had a fever of over 100 degrees for a week. You have bags under your eyes. And you look terrible."

"Hmm. I thought I was lookin' alright today."

"No. You look horrible. Take care of yourself now. See a doctor if you have to. Go to a clinic. Don't be proud. You'll get a job when the good lord is good and ready."

We all have different standards for what constitutes entertainment. Anything that's got solid writing is fine in my book. If someone who calls themselves a critic has something good to say about it, that helps. If it's got a kid left Home Alone or John Candy as an uncle making pancakes that can't fit inside the kitchen, well it's probably going to be the best movie ever. And it's got too much nagging, well I can get that in a car ride with my Grandma. I like entertainment that doesn't remind me of who I am and where I've been. I don't like reality, and I don't like arguing. In my movies, in my tv shows, or in my life.

I saw the Breakup, because people said alright things about it. My critical critique after seeing it: Those people are liars.

If I lived 100 more years, those are 100 years I'd be just fine doing without arguing. Doing it myself, or listening to others. There's nothing fun about it. Hence my rule.

I accepted tickets Sunday to the Ahmanson for one reason only: I love the Ahmanson. As a nine year old I saw the ballet at the music center just about once a month. I sat next to people drinking wine, and ate my pretzel. As a twenty nine year old, I like it just the same. The scrapers of downtown LA surround the theatres, which all surround three perfectly nice looking fountains. If I had a say in to whether I got married, and engaged, who it was, and where it all started, I'd ask the universe to make it happen there. I've romanticized that I'd stare across the shooting water, and a face in the crowd, would be the one, the one for me. We'd live happily ever after, and it's probably fairly certain this will never happen, but I decided it at nine with my pretzel, and I'm not about to let that little girl down.

I like to dress up, take the train there, sit near the orchestra, hurded with old women and new pashminas, little girls and party dresses, and be in this world, this romanticized world, acted out for me. I'd stop at intermission to replay what it was I enjoyed, and at lights dimming, head back for the second half. When it's all over I'd scurry out to make my train, peer at the fountains, sifting through every face in the crowd, and box up, like a present, my romanticized feelings for this place for next time.

The trouble is, I never went Sunday. I never took the train, or saw the play, looked through the crowd, or stood under the dimmed lights. I wanted to know in advance the play's subject and for that, I never went. It would have been three and a half hours or arguing, a family at odds with each other, doors slamming, marching up stairs to nowhere. So I read the summation, was able to provide "how I liked it," with details, to my mom, when she called to ask how it was the next day.

I don't enjoy lying, but I do enjoy seeing my mother is satisfied - and she was. In her mind, I went. And in mine, I did too. For romanticism is a place I visit only when I travel within. The man in the crowd I meet, and fall for, probably won't be at the music center. It most probably won't even be near fountains. He'll be far different than the bow covered boxed up fantasy that I've had twenty years and a pretzel to create. But he will be, a gift.

When I'm out in the world, and I see others, unappreciative of that love and arguing though they live on a stage in August Osage County, I think about that gift, and that boxed up dream, and wish for silence. Where I could lay among fountains, my head on his heaving chest, and ask for nothing more than just being. Being with the man who holds my heart.