Catfish, the documentary

I watched Catfish last night, a documentary made by two brothers and their friend. Basically, one brother is a photographer in New York and he gets sent a painting of a photo he's taken, supposedly painted by Abby, an 8-year old girl in Michigan. The film follows his 'cyber' (Facebook) friendship with her and her mother, father, brother and then his blooming relationship with Megan, her older sister, first on Facebook, then over the phone. Further paintings follow.

Over eight months he falls in love with her, becoming friends with her friends on Facebook, looking at pictures, spending hours chatting. Then she sends him a song she says she wrote and sang for him. He Googles it, and they find the song, written and performed by someone else. At this point it all falls apart and they decide to go to the small town where they all supposedly live.

Basically it turns out that, while there is a daughter, Megan, and an Abby, the mother is the painter; the 'Megan' that's he talked to, fallen in love with, divulged all his energy into; the friends; the brother. She has created all their Facebook profiles, talked to him over the phone late into the night. Her awe of him is palpable. His confusion and disappointment obvious.

It is heartbreaking to see as he confronts her, a woman who does not look as she (Abby) has portrayed herself in paintings. She is mortified, sad. At one point she says each of the characters she'd created were a part of her that she longed to be, that she couldn't be, because that's just how life turned out for her.

In reality, she is a woman, living with a husband in small town America (he seemed a bit wanting), looking after his severely retarded, grown-up twin boys from a previous marriage and their daughter, Abby, estranged from her elder daughter, Megan. An artist and story-teller stuck in a life she didn't think she'd be stuck in.

It's fascinating and I'm writing this before I go and do some internet investigation because, as the story unfolds, it becomes hard to believe that it actually, really, happened. It's also fascinating to realise how the world we live in is so stuck on looks. The Megan she created was blonde, buxom, beautiful in the pics (she'd taken pics from some model) which, obviously, helped our young lad to fall for her but, essentially, he'd fallen for her actual being, having not met her 'physically.'

This is a documentary that asks all sorts of questions and exposes many truths. Facebook is a minefield. Human nature is fragile. We all, essentially, just want to be loved.

The movie left me feeling incredibly raw and a bit sad.

TDoT(30): A letter to yourself, tell yourself EVERYTHING you love about yourself

Dear Shiny,

I love that you’re you. A so-very-you you that nobody else could ever be you. I’m pretty sure nobody else really wishes they were you, but that’s beside the point. I love that you try to smile at everybody, or acknowledge their presence. From your Big Boss to the guy begging at the traffic lights, I love that you truly believe in the common human spirit.

That worrying thing? I love that you worry about worrying too much, it just shows how very silly you are. I love that, every now and again, you actually lift your head above the water and realise that most things have a funny side and it doesn’t all have to be So Serious or So Dramatic.

I love that your lips look good when you put lipstick on. Would you, please, finally, realise that and maybe make a bit more effort with it? You’re 35-years old, you can stop feeling like a child playing with her mother’s make-up when you use blusher or paint your lips. I love that you don’t feel the need to slather yourself with make-up every day.

I love that you’ve surrounded yourself with lovely friends. Some who’ve been around for many, many, moons; some not-so-many, yet. The fact that you know they’ll also be here for the long haul makes me love you more.

So your body’s not exactly something which is going to grace the cover of Sportman’s Illustrated (or, for that matter, even the inside pages), it’s still kept you going all these years, so I love it too – it’s fine-tuned little mechanisms for breathing, digesting, blood flowing etc, they’ve had their problems, but they’ve all pulled you through, and I love them for that.

I don’t wish to inflate your ego, so let’s leave it there.

Love,
You x

The unlonely man

I went for a follow up X-ray this morning but don’t fret, this post has no gory details of innards and such, it’s about the people I saw there. Mainly one of them. G took me, which made it much more fun. We decided to go a bit earlier and have some breakfast at the hospital canteen. I had Eggs Florentine for the first time in my life. It was delicious, other than the fact that the cheese sauce (I thought it was meant to be Hollandaise?) was made from processed cheese. Let me not get into a food review though, I am (again) straying.

I am always struck in hospitals by the invisible fog of emotion. As the electronic doors open, the fresh air from outside rushes in to dilute the flitting-about emotions inside – sadness for sick loved ones, ecstatic happiness for new beings just born, worry for unknown ailings – it swirls and twirls.

We sat at a table on the edge of the canteen, listening to the three ‘older’ ladies two tables away discussing last night’s episode of Survivor, something they obviously do every Tuesday morning, each one religiously sticking up for their favourite animal in the cage contestant.

As we sipped on our café lattes, chatting about all manner of things both of us looked toward the edge of the canteen area as an impeccably dressed man arrived, arranged his filofax and book neatly on a table, folded his jacket neatly on a chair and sat down. He ordered coffee from the waitress and sat with his hands neatly clasped on his lap. She brought the coffee and he ordered some toast and anchovette and ate it, also neatly.

In between his foodly orders he made a few phonecalls (one to the lady he was waiting for, to check he had time for the toast before she arrived, one to somebody (a friend perhaps, or a patient) to see if she was feeling better and had a good night), he received a call (I think from his lover, but that’s just my imagination running away with me) who he told he was waiting for a rep, having some coffee and toast. I sound nosey, don’t I? This was all done loudly, in a coffee shop, at a table near us, so I figure he wasn’t looking for privacy.

This all sounds pretty ordinary doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. You see, throughout all this (between his waitress interactions and phonecalls) he conducted a solid conversation. With himself. Just below hearing level. It was amazing and, as I said to G, what a great way to be! He must never be lonely, having himself as a constant companion, somebody who understands him fully and who he gets along with oh-so-very-well. I guess some people would call him mad.

We should all be so lucky to be that kind of companionable mad, shouldn’t we?

The Lift Phenomenon

Sometimes I am thrilled by human nature, other times I’m horrified. But mainly I’m intrigued. Like The Lift Phenomenon, for instance. What's that all about? I work on the fifth floor of a lovely, old building with an angel on top of it. Due to the fact that it is old, it has old lifts too. And they are somewhat rickety and can be a little bit, well, let’s just say, tardy. They're the type of lifts urban legends are made of - there are many, many stuck-in-the-lift-stories here. But, mostly, there are complaints of their slowness.

The thing is this though, why is it that people think that if they keep pushing the button (often viciously), the lift will come quicker? Do they really think that they have some super-power-like energy which travels directly from their finger tip, through the electrical wiring, to the little box that tells the lift that someone is looking for it, making the lift jump to attention, go faster to the floor that it was taking its current passengers, whip its door open and push its passengers out, and then whizz back down to pick up the impatient twit with a pressy finger and a super-power-complex? I think not.

It’s pretty obvious it’s Monday in my world, isn’t it?