Peaceful easy Sunday plus a movie recommendation...

First, the movie recommendation.

If you're like me and you didn't see this movie in theaters, you would be well served to either rent it or watch it on Cinemax (I believe that's where it's showing this month).

For those of you who have been living under a rock, this is the movie job where Brangelina fell in love with each other. After watching the two of them on screen, let's just say I know why they did.

CHEMISTRY, baby. All CHEMISTRY.

Either they are two of the absolutely best actors on the planet (which isn't hard to imagine at all) or they were truly feeling the first currents of love for each other while they were filming this. It was amazing to watch!

Pitt and Jolie were both funny, they did many of their own stunts, and the plot premise was really kind of cool (two spies/assassins that don't know what the other one does for a living, and then they have to kill each other). The fact that they're in marriage therapy at the same time really adds to it. The spectacular and the mundane really go together quite nicely, and they send a message out about relationships, marriage, honesty, semi-automatic weapons, and knife throwing. I really liked this movie...I should have gone to see it in the theaters with a big screen, but I was happy to watch at home because I could pause the film for potty breaks.

Well...in other news...we've had a mini-monsoon season here in the district, but it was needed. Also, I think I gave a cold to Doug, but isn't that what relationships are all about - SHARING??? That's what I thought I learned in therapy.

H#2 (aka Ed H.) sent me two clips from YouTube today that were really interesting. They were two separate clips of musicians - father Tim Buckley and son Jeff Buckley. They looked almost exactly alike, and the tragic thing was they both died young. I think they were suicides but I don't know (if any of my readers do, please feel free to correct me).

One of my aunts has asked me this before, and I'm thinking about this now...why are artists so prone to depression, suicide, etc.?

Personally, I don't know if we're any more prone to it than anyone else...we're just a lot freer with expressing ourselves in the first place so people find out about it sooner.

I'm sure for every artist that's depressed, there are just as many farmers, pro wrestlers, police officers, school kids, senior citizens, zookeepers - WHOEVER - that are depressed or in some way off kilter as far as emotions are concerned.

I'm not sure what the difference is other than people almost expect artists of any sort to be a little on the edge. It's not like we OWN it...but there it is.

I think its because for our inspiration, we have to stripmine our souls if the inspiration isn't already there.

I imagine those hidden feelings are like snakes in one of those woven baskets in India, you know?

They stay inside, all coiled up and comfortable.

Then, somebody/something knocks the basket over and the snakes slither out.

Some are big, some are small. Some are thin, some are as big around as your upper arm.

They hiss...but you hear what they're really whispering:

"You're worthless..."

"You're weak..."

"You're really not worth the effort, you know..."

"You deserve all this pain..."

Their hisses/words swirl around in your head. What drowns them out? Everything and nothing.

Drugs, booze, sex, risks, money - they are just momentary stoppers, so to speak.

But the snakes come back. They always come back.

I remember when I was less medicated. Some people abhor the thought of taking legal or illegal drugs because they want to feel everything they can possibly feel. (Others just hate to swallow pills, but I digress...)

What I have found with myself is this: the snakes are still there. They still tell me bad things. But the lid's on.

I don't love myself (I hate that term, by the way...to me it is just the ultimate in elitist psychobabble and doesn't mean a damn thing). I don't embrace my inner child.

I just keep the lid on the snakes...with an anvil if necessary. I will never have the focus mechanism totally conquered (if you don't know how to use it when you're young, it's not as easy to learn as you get older).

I work hard, I do the things I know how to do, I try to love others as well as I can, and I try to overcome this stupid Midwestern stoicism and let people in.

Take that, snakes.