Penelope

One of my favorite feelings is going to Target or Albertson’s and finding an old movie that I used to rent relentlessly from the corner Blockbuster I used to live by, but had now forgotten about, on sale for six or five dollars.  See, a few days ago I thought I was walking into Albertson’s for raspberry extract.  I actually came out with raspberry extract, a tin of Altoids, and Penelope, for five dollars!  When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it!  I hadn’t seen that movie in years, yet I still listed it as my favorite everywhere it required me to fill my favorite movies for.  I bought it because I had to.

I first saw the movie when my dad took my sister, Sabrina, and I for a “daddy date”, where we went to dinner, and then saw Penelope at the theatre.  I am totally making a “:3: face as I type this, but I remember coming home from that “date” and getting a nervous panic attack because I was feeling feelings I had never felt before, and then, after I anxiously told my mom, I realized I was just developing a severe crush on James McAvoy.  And so my love for him began.

Penelope is about a girl (Christina Ricci) who was born with a curse—she has a snout.  For some reason that I am happy to report was beyond me even the first time I saw this movie and thought was the ultimate, perfect movie: everyone finds this incredibly horrid (mostly her mother), so the parents fake her death and hide her away, only revealing her to rich “blue bloods” who can marry her to break the curse.  A reporter and a rich mama’s boy have already seen Penelope, but nobody believes them, so they hire Max Campion (James McAvoy) to secretly take a picture of her if and when she reveals herself to him.

While not Oscar material, this is one of the only films that gives me legitimate “fuzzies” and warm feelings.  There are a bunch of close-ups of James McAvoy’s face, pretty clothes, Christina Ricci’s perfect face—ahem—and Reese Witherspoon.  I’ve picked out your favorite film and you haven’t even seen it yet.  (Unless you have, then please, let’s fangirl about it together?!)

I’m So Tired, I’m Feeling So Upset. . . I’ll Have Another Cigarette

✍ CURRENTLY WRITING FROM: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

Something that I’ve always resented about myself is my body clock.  There’s no possible way for me to even try to be joking when I say that, on weekdays, when I’m meant to be getting up for school, I have a difficulty to get out of my bed.  Even if I have woken up too late (around seven), I still am too sleepy to think about where I left my slippers or to remember that I have to put out the candle I accidentally left on all night; yet, on weekends, I’ve always woken up at around six, or five minutes until six.  I’ve never slept in on a weekend.  Even at New Year’s, if I go to sleep at five in the morning, I’ll be waking up at around nine in the morning.  It is physically impossible for me to sleep in.  Or take a nap.  I think sleeping and I just weren’t meant to be.

Today was one of those mornings.  I woke up at exactly 5:38 a.m.  I cleared the cobwebs out of my eyes.  In the private safety of my room, I stretched like I knew other happy girls in getting-ready-for-school movie montages do, and in my recklessness, knocked over the clock off my bedside table.  I checked the time.  It was 5:38 a.m.  I wondered what was wrong with me.  I touched my forehead.  I pinched the side of my stomach.  I checked the soles of my feet.  I couldn’t find anything.  Okay with the fact that it was earlier than usual, I plugged in my Christmas lights so as to not feel so alone in my room.  On my way, I checked the color of my tongue in the mirror.  I was dehydrated.  And it was 5:38 a.m.

Sometimes I feel like what I really need in my life are white sheets for my bed.  I’d be willing to conduct a study to prove that those with white bed sheets have better mornings.  Well…  on the other side, they do have much more cleaning to do, don’t they?  And…  they don’t get to drink hot chocolate in bed?  And they don’t get to sleep with their boots on after certain nights?  And…  and…  they can’t go outside barefoot to look at the moon one last time before finally giving up on the day?

My dad calls this thing I just did a “shame”.  You just convinced yourself out of a thing you proposed yourself about thirty seconds ago.  Nobody had to do that for you.

When it hit six-twenty in the morning, I decided to call my grandmother.  My grandmother is a really stubborn sweetheart, and I like to think my mother inherited that trait, which I’m growing into as well.  Every time I visit her, she tells me she misses me all the time.  Since I used to sleep over at her house almost every weekend when I used to live in Mexico, I know that she wakes up extra early, as well.  I also like to think that I got my own habit from her.  I called her cell phone, since I know my cousins, who live there as well, do indeed like their sleep.

The conversation took place in Spanish.

“Hola, Mami Tere,” I said. 

“Hola, mija!  What a nice surprise, how are—wait, what are you doing up so early?  What!  What are you doing up so early!  Go back to sleep!”  I could hear the years of worrying.

“I just wanted to say hi!  And it’s not that early.”

“Oh.  Good.  Because you need some sleep.  You never sleep.  Sometimes you have to just stop thinking.  Or else your feet will hurt.”

We proceeded to talk about meatballs, the weather difference in Baja California and California, the news (which included some nagging about how I really really really should re-consider if I actually want to move to Europe after I graduate), how my hair has been keeping up, and how she has to go to therapy for her arm.

Before I hung up, she paused for a really long time, and then she told me that she really loved me.  I told her she was my favorite person in the world, and that I missed her.

Even though I felt inexplicably guilty, I didn’t cry.  I fixed myself hot chocolate (drunk in bed) and pondered on Paul McCartney.

P.S. If you haven’t seen the Perks of Being a Wallflower trailer—I know, I’m like the fiftieth person to say that this morning, aren’t I?—then go do it!  After having read this book a few years ago, and re-reading it a couple of twenty times, I have to say I could not be more excited.  I am so grateful to the MTV Movie Awards for playing the exclusive trailer before the awards to save me from actually having to watch the “awards”.

Other People Want to Keep in Touch

✍ CURRENTLY WRITING FROM: SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA

My hair actually looked this way when I woke up this morning.  I took this is a beautiful sign and proceeded to make myself presentable in the best possible attitude.

Yesterday…  was… my last day of school!  Well, as a junior, anyway.

Today, I woke up and the first thing I noticed was that one of my socks had disappeared into my sheets.  I swung my leg around (or, as much swinging a leg can do underneath heaps of soft pillows) to try to feel/find it.  A window was open, and a bird’s chirping was distracting me.  I had opened it at one o’clock in the morning, I remember, because I couldn’t fall asleep.

I walked over to the window to close it, since my room was getting cold, and noticed a bee.  Just sitting there.  Pretending like it helped set up that window there.  Hmm.  I scrambled to find my stash of toothpicks (which I use to lit candles whose wicks are too far into a jar for my lighter to reach) and tried to poke at it, but the trooper stayed.  Also, I felt bad.

I noticed the state of my hair as I walked past my mirror and am embarrassed to admit I smiled at myself for about fifteen whole seconds.  Then I remembered I had braces and cut that out.

I also remembered that I had to take my SAT’s.  Then my hair didn’t make me feel as fancy as it once had.  It was a relief, though—last night I realized that school wasn’t over until I had finally taken my SAT’s.  Good news, though!  My hair worked.  I think they went…  well.  I was a bit uncomfortable to see so many people from my school, there, though.

After my test, I bought series three of Doctor Who.  And I watched it all.  In one day.  (Can you believe I used to hate Martha?)

Phew.  It still feels like I’m going back to school on Monday.  I’m a senior or something, apparently.

Also, yesterday, after I came home from school (see?! It’s so natural!) I made a video!  And I…  felt strange.  But excited!  Because I’m actually somewhat proud of it!  I really wanted to go to the park, or to the pool (typical things that teenagers do in summer movies, so I wanted to do it!), or do something summer-esque to celebrate my seniorhood…  but I couldn’t do things.

So I stayed home and did things over and over in front of a camera.