I’m gonna kill Bill!

As a member of the female of the species, I am always looking for new interesting, complex and meaningful female characters in literature, film, and music who don’t piss me off.  Many times women tend to be (1) damsel in distress, (2) female sidekick, (3) sex object/pretty backdrop, (4) gender quota fodder, and/or (5) all the above, also known as Angelina Jolie.

But every now and then you get just a good, fun wacked out character who just couldn’t be anything other than a woman, and makes me want to take up a martial art. And dye my hair blonde.

Kill Bill is a horrible movie, I mean, make no mistake. It is ridiculously convoluted, the characters are caricatures, the plot is winding and the dialogue is doofy. It’s violent, foul-mouthed, comically overdone. And I love every second of it.

Quentin Tarantino knows that there is a large portion of movie-goers like me who appreciate lunacy and self-aggrandizing storytelling. And the Q man has a profound love for these things, and Uma Thurman’s feet. Not to mention the kind of respect needed to give female characters their room for complexity and gravity.

All this to say, every time I’m channel surfing and Kill Bill (vol 1 or 2 and especially both in order) is on, I am totally sucked in. Even though I own it and have seen it a dozen times.

Which brings me to another point – all the other movies that I own personally tend to be male-centric. All 3 Blades, all 3 Matrix, all 3 Lord of the Rings, all 3 Star Wars… and Chronicles of Riddick/Pitch Black, and ummm Sense and Sensibility. (Yeah. Ok. That last one was a gift.) I still cry every time Whistler dies in Blade. Which incidentally happens again in the third one. Gotta love scifi. I also have things like Fight Club and Boondock Saints and the Fifth Element. I need to go buy things like Bridget Jones’ Diary and Bridget Jones’ whatever-the-sequel-was-called, and something with Kate Hudson in it. Oh and maybe throw in a Susan Sarandon flick for good measure. Somewhere inside there’s a girly girl screaming to get out. She’s taking her sweet time to get out here, cuz shes doing her nails or something…

holding out for WOW

I have written a lot about relationships, chemistry, and job search analogies.  You can click on any of those tags on the right and read up on my many hypothesis and general ponderings.  Today a friend wrote “I can hold out for WOW” and I thought that was a brilliant little statement.  It should be a t-shirt. And a keychain so I can take it with me wherever i go.

I want to be WOW’d.  Like i want to think about him, see his name pop up on my cell phone or my email and smile from head to toe. I want to have butterflies when I am on my way to see him, or know that he’s in the car on the way to me.  And more than just some biochemical response, I want my very soul to be touched by his presence, his caring for me and my life, and his heart for God and country and of course me.  And i want someone who amazes me, challenges me, makes me think about things and makes me stronger on what I think.  Someone who blesses me just by our conversation and makes me feel like we can do anything.

That’s a lot to ask right?  I often refer to the similarities between job-hunting and dating.  But with jobs, we tend to take the lesser of all evils after considering all our options, whatever is basically what we can handle and what pays the bills. Because you HAVE to pay the bills.

With relationships though, we don’t HAVE to be in one.  I think that’s something we forget – at least many people I know seem to.  Don’t date someone because they are just “there” or fun or cool or hot or whatever corny reason you may have. Think about why you are with that person and pursuing that person.  Maybe it’s even a matter of not pursuing that person – maybe he or she is pursuing you and you just kinda give in and let stuff happen.  Is that purpose-driven living? I think not.

But here’s where the realism sets in. WOW is hard to find and kinda nerve-wracking. esp for ppl who have been in a serious relationship or married already.  you thought you had WOW once and it wasnt all it was cracked up to be. or that you put your heart and soul into WOW and WOW let you down or didn’t feel the same or lost that WOW feeling about you.  whatever the case is, once we’ve been burned, it is hard to jump back into the fire.
 
WOW is also really intimidating.  when you meet someone who is that incredible you think (1) this person is amazing…  I am so gonna FUBAR this up or (2) this person is not going to want me because i’m not THAT amazing, or (3) there HAS to be something wrong with this person and i wont find out til years and a couple babies into it. or you think a blend of all three of those at once and think, what’s the point, gimme another beer.

I have to think back on the times I’ve been WOW’d.  i can count them on uh… two fingers.  and guess what - neither worked out.  And here I am less than WOW’d by a lot of people I’ve met in the past few years and wondering if it will ever happen again.  I am intrigued, piqued, mildly amused and distracted - sure.  But WOW’d? Well, not really. I had a bit of a WOW experience in the past year, but it turned more into an OW experience by the end. So, I’m still waiting.  And waiting. And waiting some more…

But that’s what I’m trying to say here I think.  Holding out.  It’s a good thing.  It comes down to what I truly believe about life and love.  It’s about trusting that if I hold my breath, the Lord will provide. Not literally hold it of course, but figurative.  To figuratively “hold my breath” for the right one and to believe beyond a shadow of doubt that in the right time, in the right way, he will be there for me. Before I pass out. Not that I’m testing God, mind you. But that I believe if and when it’s supposed to happen, it will – and not a second before or too late. And trust is tricky. Say that ten times fast. And learning to really trust is what we have this life for in the first place.  I think it’s safe to say I’m getting closer all the time.

oxo

love life

not THAT love life… i mean the verb – love.

the pastor of my church  is doing a series on the ten commandments and recently it was on thou shalt not murder. or to quote the sopranos version of the Bible, dont wack nobody.

it seems on the surface that this is the “easy” command by a long stretch.  of course i wont murder anyone. duh! but we know, because Jesus decided to layer the issue, that it goes deeper than the actual physical taking of life.  it also incorporates the emotional/mental taking of life, beginning with the rage and deep-seated hostility we may feel toward others.  it also also includes the distinctly opposite IN-action of not caring profoundly about life, specifically other people’s lives.

this made me think about how “in love” i really am with other people’s lives.  i mean we tend to be fairly self-centered people and think about only our own day, our own agendas, our own pains and sorrows, our own joys and successes, our own blog entries.  we may feel a connection to other people’s but only in relation to our own. 

but how much do i really affirm the lives of other people and ensure that it continues and that it continues well?  how much of my time and energies do i proactively concentrate on the benefit of others, in contributing to their abundance of life?

this also made me think of the first recorded murder of cain and abel.  now as you may know the part of the story where basically cain disobeyed God and didnt sacrifice the best parts where abel did.  and cain became jealous of the favor that abel received from God, even though cain could have gotten the same.  jealousy is often the root of hostility and hatred toward others, if we take an honest look at it.  and cain was actually given a course of action to take by God Himself, but he chose to ignore it and remove what he THOUGHT was the problem, namely his brother, instead of what the real problem was, namely his pride. i can relate – i have often wanted to kill my brothers. hahaha. no no no!!! i’m just kidding!!!!

but seriously, i find it truly amazing how God is faithful to us even in the middle of our wickedness and disobedience.  how He is so in love with us and watches over us and guides us even when we resist Him. so how can we not take care of His people? how can we not be THAT much in love with each other?  that we choose life and that we are doing all we can to uphold it for all of us?

so our charge is not just to “not take life” but to “give” it in the ways that we are able.  to uphold it, cherish, enable it, grow it, assist it, and ultimately LOVE it, for ourselves and for those around us. so i urge you, dear readers, fall in love, really truly in love, with someone else’s life today…

oxo