But I won’t get to it, I don’t think. I need to start this New Year’s Resolution thing over again.
Today my Mom and my sister really wanted me to watch Twilight before it left theaters. I have an anti-Twilight bias, because I’m a guy that doesn’t like cliche mainstream trends. There’s a lot of guys like me. I really liked the movie though. Some of the actresses were pretty good-looking, and I loved the baseball scene… something oddly likable about the elements they put together on that one… rock music, slow motion, cracks of thunder, superhuman awesomery, and the strange amusing idea that this is the side of vampires you don’t see usually. Otherwise, Stephanie Meyer obviously pulled some interesting Mormon dilemmas out to spice up the vampire-human relationship. I still believe that the only thing that separates Edward from myself on the totem pole is the fact that he has an impeccable bone structure and superpowers. I’ve heard several girls hint that I should watch Twilight to figure out what the ladies are looking for… but hey, I stay out of the sun, I’m protective, gentlemanly, cordial, interesting, loyal… I like to wear sunglasses and the latest fashions. From what I’ve seen, the basic variable for attracting awesome female companionship is still attractive features, physical capability, and simple, fundamental good manners. The other way around, of course, is a degree worse, but I want what was promised to me at a young age: the transcendence of the non-physical over the physical. And I’ve no reason to complain about my own physical features… indeed, as well as any man can, I judge myself to rank highly if not at the top of the pyramid… but it still screams inequality. Are all males and females simply given numeric values of physical attractiveness at birth and expected to match one another? It really seems as if our entire courting period we are all given a number, and we compete with one another to find a match to that number. If you can get higher, great, but it always seems something like a trick: if everyone tries to find someone with a value higher than themselves, there would be no matches. In every partnership, someone either has to concede a defeat, or if they are lucky, their numerical value (of physical attractiveness) is the same. Its predestination. Its a very important process governed by unimportant elements. Hopefully, the Internet, in allowing people to express their inner being more fluently and escape their physical conditions, will allow some circumvention of this system. I envision a world where the physical is forgotten, when everyone begins the same and is given the same opportunities to learn and develop mentally… when someone is judged, it would be by the work they have done, the mind and personality they have honed, the relationships they have built. Why can someone be famous for a body that they are not altogether responsible for putting together? Why do they deserve respect and admiration, one reward after another? Its the way things are, but it shouldn’t be the way things are.
But I digress. I got a haircut today and I think it looks great. My Mom cooked some excellent Indian food for the family. We watched The Office together. Connor, my Mom and I played a game of Catan on X-Box Live.
Of more importance, I found an old friend from elementary school, Jackie Anderson, on Facebook. I was reminded of her after watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I guess I was just thinking of old childhood friends and she came up as memory #1. It looks like she has lived a good life after I left Georgia for the West. She has a large subscriber base at YouTube, in the hundreds. I am very happy for her, I’m glad that she has been so successful. I hope our encounter goes well! I called her three years ago (four years after I left in 2002) and I liked catching up, but I was displeased with myself, embarassed really about how the person I was trying to become was so distant at that point in my life. I have finally begun to approach a point where I can respect who I am, though I still have a way to go and that will probably always be at least a step away. The skinny, long-haired, pimple-ridden guy I was in high school still had a lot going for him… good grades, friends, intelligence, creativity, good morales, a great family, a wonderful home, a car, an awesome best friend of a twin brother… yes, but my potential still was not and is still not being reached. There were plenty of people that talked down to me, no matter how much confidence I could put together, no matter how witty I could be, or charismatic… and its all because of that physical factor. I would always be reaching for that respect but only just touch it, while others seemed to hold it with a casual simplicity. That’s not the Brendon Carpenter I want to create, the person I want to attach my name to. He’s a guy you can be friends with without worrying, you know, if you’ll regret it. He’s a guy everyone would feel comfortable talking with, even listening to what he says. No one makes up excuses to end a conversation with him. No one talks dispassionately in a conversation he has begun. And until I can reach that position, man, I’ll always feel uncomfortable communicating with people. There will always be something in the back of my mind that tells me: this could end badly, even after I’ve given it all the effort I can muster.
Going back to UC Santa Cruz tomorrow afternoon. I wonder what I should do differently.
