Mar 11, 2008
"Do you like sex and travel?"
Tonight, I watched The Matador. I saw this movie in theatres and immensely enjoyed it. If you haven't seen it, it's a movie that's about what you would do if, while on a business trip to Mexico City, you met and befriended an assassin. The movie isn't quite what you think it's going to be, and it has some great scenes. So check it out.
Anyway, there's a line in the film that I love: "Just consider me the best cocktail story you ever met." I think I want life to be made up of many incidents that could lead to that line being said. I want life experiences to be fun, easily summarized and great to talk about at parties. But the truth of the matter is, that if everything that happened to me met these criteria, I would probably be severely lacking in character. In many ways, we are the sum of our experiences.
I know this isn't new ground, but it's something that I come back to every few years. I told Sam once that for most of college, my main life goal was to do something cool as an adult. He said that wasn't necessarily such a bad life goal. Well, let's be honest, it kind of was. And my last job was cool in some ways, but it made me miserable and showed me that whether or not it's cool, work is still work. You should do something you like that maybe even serves a purpose you can "get behind," as it were.
So now I work for a behavioral health non-profit. We do something that I believe in, and I get to do work that I enjoy. And I have a truly great team of co-workers. So I feel like I'm starting to get back on the right track.
Then, I saw this. Maybe there's no hope for my character.
toothpastefordinner.com
*FYI: Toothpaste for Dinner is a great webcomic that I make a point to read daily. It's not uplifting, but it's usually hilarious. Check it out. Maybe it'll make a great cocktail story one day.
2 comments:
I really loved this post, Natalie :) Really, really loved it. I can empathize with you wanting nothing more than to do something cool as an adult.
I think that at previous jobs, I was able to kinda kid myself that I was being creative...in a creative environment and all that stuff. And I guess, in many ways, I was. It's a little shaming sometimes to now find myself in such a corporate environment--a place where there's really no way to mask the "9 to 5-ness" of what I do all day.
Still, I feel that if I'm able to enjoy my time here (if not necessarily my actual work), then it keeps me uplifted for what I choose to do after I leave. I don't feel like just going home and vegging out (like I did at Premiere, where I loved the work but not the time). For me, it's been a trade-off, which is something they never really tell you about in college. (Along with how they never tell you your degree area doesn't matter, just how you choose to spin it.)
So...on the Bardem. I KNOW DENNY DUQUETTE! I mean, I know he looks like him. It popped into my head last night. I couldn't get the Edward James Olmos to format right, so I deleted it.
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