I think I live in the first act of a RomCom…

Lately I’ve been having a creeping feeling…I think I live in a RomCom (romantic comedy for those not attuned to film speak). There are days where I expect Rob Reiner to tail me on the El.

Okay, I know…I get it, ladies. Romantic comedies are demeaning to women and depict crazy, obnoxious, desperate people in impossible situations.  Maybe true.  However, when I watched Independence Day, I didn’t assume aliens were on their way to blast the White House to smithereens…. Holy crap, never had to spell smithereens before…It’s entertainment, meant to be taken lightly, not the gospel!

And, honestly, let’s face it. After a while, cynicism, however entertaining it may be, is EXHAUSTING.

So in light of those disclaimers, I will tell you that I am of the persuasion that loves to get lost in an impossible love story every now and again. Maybe I’ve been listening to my Nat King Cole Pandora station too much lately, but here are a list of reasons that make me think Nora Ephron just might pop out of my file cabinet….

I live in a big city and am building my career in a fast and fun industry.

I have quirky friends/roommates who offer crazy advice and provide comic relief.

Old standards make my heart feel happy. I wanna be loved by you, just you, nobody else but you….

I’m slightly neurotic (hopefully in an endearing way.)

Harry Burns: There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low maintenance.
Sally Albright: Which one am I?
Harry Burns: You’re the worst kind; you’re high maintenance but you think you’re low maintenance.
Sally Albright: I don’t see that.
Harry Burns: You don’t see that? Waiter, I’ll begin with a house salad, but I don’t want the regular dressing. I’ll have the balsamic vinegar and oil, but on the side. And then the salmon with the mustard sauce, but I want the mustard sauce on the side. “On the side” is a very big thing for you.

I remain a romantic even the face of overwhelming cynicism. Although, I try my best to hide it.

I’m pretty awkward and say bizarre things around people who I find to be attractive.

I have a huge, interesting family whose high jinks, in part, I have inherited.

I’m a street walker from a small town who dreams of a better life and meets a millionaire who falls deeply in love with her and makes all of her dreams come true………okay….not that one…..

Let’s hope that I’m in a happy ending RomCom (When Harry Met Sally) and not a rumination on the impossibility of love RomCom (Annie Hall).

I guess I won’t know for sure until a slip into the “looking out the rainy/snowy/blustery window montage” and push » on the DVD remote.

Now is the summer of our discontent…

POST ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON paperdolls-style.com as guest blogger!

“Now is the winter of our discontent” are the opening words of Shakespeare’s Richard III and lay the groundwork for the portrait of Richard as a discontented man who is unhappy in a world that hates him.  It is telling the reader that this is the end of unhappiness…dripping with sarcasm. Ring bells for anyone?

Although this beautifully written, hopeful phrase may apply to some, for most, the world is a soft serve twist cone of chocolate and spoiled vanilla.  As members of Generation Y, we are go-getters.  We can’t be told how to live our lives.  We pride ourselves as climbers of the professional ladder.  However, we’ve been criticized for viewing ourselves as entitled.  Even though most of us are hard workers, we work differently, possibly alienating us from our workplace counterparts born in previous decades.  We work hard but for different reasons.  We don’t expect a nine to five.  We don’t expect a twenty year tenure and a house in the burbs.  We expect the unexpected, the exceptional.  We are driven, in some cases, not for the house or the car or the kids or the high profile position, but rather, we are driven for the liquid substance that exists between these material things, something we too often identify by our physical acquisitions-HAPPINESS.

We’ve always been told, “shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you’ll still be among the stars.”  What if being among the stars isn’t enough?  What if we’ve expected to be moonpeople all along?  Why do we assume that we should be happier than happy?

I just watched a movie called Everybody’s Fine starring Robert Deniro, Kate Beckinsale, Sam Rockwell, and Drew Barrymore, and in it, I find the grand drama of the chasm that exists between baby boomers and GenY artfully exposed.  DeNiro, a man who worked his entire life in a factory producing phone cables, tells his children to be all that they can be.  One of his sons tells him that he wants to be a painter.  DeNiro replies, “You don’t want to be a painter. You want to be an artist.  Painters paint walls that dogs pee on.”

Many of those who have come before us laid groundwork.  They essentially say, “I can be a painter.  I can be the best painter there ever was.  I can get a contract to paint the entire Hoover Dam.  I’ll make money from it.  I’ll glean an enormous sense of satisfaction.  But you, you must stand on my shoulders.  You cannot be a painter, even if you are asked to paint the Taj Mahal and the home of every person in China.  You must be an artist.  Yes, paint these things, but paint them with passion; make them beautiful.”

This may seem like a privilege, and indeed, it is.  But I propose that we’ve been told so many stories about Moonville, that even when we arrive, we look at our fellow moonpeople and say, “You are star people.  You can’t possibly be moonpeople.  This place is not enough.”

We want to travel; we want a great job; we want never-ending fun; we want to pursue personal passion; we want people who love us.

We have student loans to pay; we scoff at entry level positions; we need to be entertained; we find it hard to be passionate about hard work; we are skiddish in the ways of love.

When does real life interfere with idealism?  Should it?

We can’t live our lives like Richard III, trampling simple things like relationships and family and home in our conquest of something great.  We also can’t live like our parents did.  There’s no turning back.  Standing on the shoulders of giants not only gives us a better reach toward the sky, but it also gives us a view of our surrounding landscape.

Yes, we should still reach for the moon, fly past the stars, but as we do so, realize that it won’t be easy and that there is happiness to be found along the way.  The trajectory of our launch is not destined, it’s a path that we carve for ourselves.  But using the fuel of beautiful ideals, we have the ability not to reach a destination but to continually push into the ever-expanding universe.  My challenge to you, my fellow GenYers, is to do so with the knowledge that it will be hard, but it will be worth it.  It will be mundane, and it will be thrilling.  It will be expected and unexpected at the same time.  And happiness is not a destination or a place or a thing, it is a way of life.

*Pour l’instant, cela est que je sais pour l’aujourd’hui. Cela est que je dis.*

A bit groggy this morning…

Ever have one of those days when you feel under water?