I want to be better. I want to achieve better things so to me it just means so much when someone wants the same things. Like trying to learn something new or improving on what you already do well is just so cool. Like putting the time in to achieve something is so much fun.
I have recently been putting my time into learning to cook. I mean I was able to do normal dude stuff like make breakfast but just not good at doing literally anything else. In the past few weeks I’ve learned to bake chicken, sear chicken, and make quesadillas. I know that’s not much yet… I’m working on a budget and literally knew nothing. I think next I’ll make soup.
Back to the previous topic, I just feel like I’m trying to learn to become more well rounded. I may be able to write greeting cards that make people cry but, that’s not gonna save me if I my refridgerator shuts down. I’ve built a few new things of furniture and maybe next for me is learning to sew or some embroidery. I think maybe that could be a usefull skill.
I don’t know what has come over me this last year but, I like that I’ve changed a lot with my mentality and even more with how I view a few things. I want to become a more interesting, more likable person, a warrior for the causes I believe in, and someone who is well read. 2021 has been a year of the new Warren, I hope that reflects here.
I’ve been through a few things and seen some people stagnate in ways that I can’t really stomach. And one person who’s taken to learning new things and improving in ways I can’t help but marvel at. I think maybe I’ll ask people going forward what they did during the pandemic. I know that probably won’t be a fair judgement but I have to say the people who have improved definitely have something else in them. Some have really thrived during this time and while I can’t say the same I’ve tried to improve. I don’t want to look back at this time as the lost years. I don’t want to just stagnate anymore.
Hey readers, what have you done during this pandemic. It can be something small or something big, how have you become a better person? Hang in there, we can see the horizon!
What do you do when someone puts into words a fantasy you didn’t know you’d long for? I mean everything else around you is just so complicated and this seems so right your breath catches. Is this what affairs are made of. Can two unattached people have an affair?
Have you ever wanted something so much you felt guilty? Like you were somehow cheating on all your dreams, things you used to want. Now you’re typing this and you can’t forget the words they said… Were you just settling for a life you thought you wanted?
Maybe it’s a pattern for me. Is it weird that I knew I wanted to write books in elementary school when someone else wrote one? Maybe I only wanted something because I watched someone else enjoying it. While that might be how it started, I know writing was made for me. Finishing a page makes me happy in ways I didn’t know I could be. The closer I get to completing a project the better I feel about my abilities. Now if only I could finish something.
Okay readers, I hope the start of your week goes well and your tax returns come swiftly. My friend is starting a new job and I’m so proud of her. It’s just nice to see that her hard work is finally being realized in the major way it should be.
Over the weekend, I did something that made me feel uncomfortable. It scooped my stomach out because I thought it was the right move. I believed that sacrificing my comfort was worth it to make someone else happy. And the worst part is I don’t know if it did.
I wonder sometimes why we do the things we do. Like why do we roll over our gut feelings and instincts to try and make people happy? I mean is it cause it makes us happy? I believe that answer is no. I think the reason we do this is because we can’t stand the tension. I think our fear of even a bit of tension in our lives leads us to do self-destructive things.
I don’t mean things like punching walls or cutting ourselves. Even those are symptoms of a problem built up over time. I mean self-destructive like refusing to apologize or leaving a bad situation. We try so hard to keep that tension inside that it ruptures our insides when if we had released it much earlier it would have been much less a problem than we probably made it out to be.
Now I’m not saying to steamroll over someone else’s feelings but, maybe what you think is a big deal isn’t real. Maybe you should trust your relationships with those people you care about to bear that bit of tension. Maybe they’ll surprise you by understanding and the people who don’t weren’t worth all that much worry anyway. I know that’s easier said than done, throwing out your bad relationships but, I will tell you that they lift so much weight and anxiety from your shoulders.
So good luck out there, Readers, dealing with your uncomfortable feelings but, maybe you have a better way of dealing with them than I do. I knew this was probably going to be a lot for me going in and I just didn’t listen to myself. Hopefully, you all are better listeners. Has anything made you uncomfortable recently? Maybe comment on this blog, get that feeling out. It’s quiet over here no many people listening but, you and me.
I remember when I first read Looking for Alaska. It wasn’t the first time my heart had broken from a book but, it was one that would be with me for a long time. I decided to pick up Looking for Alaska again before the show came out and I’m so glad I did. I don’t usually read books multiple times but, something about Alaska got me to read everything John Green ever published. Something about his writing about way too smart teens and overly elegant speech patterns made me secretly want to be a character in his books. They were perfect. Damaged just enough to be lovable. Using big words and perfectly exposing introspective ideals that even if they don’t fit perfectly they convey so much more about the character. You can tell this made me sound not only extremely pretentious but, incredibly annoying. (I apologize to everyone who knew me back then and a few who know me now.)
I fell in love with his characters and I think so far Paper Towns is my favorite by far. Margo Roth Spiegelman is awesome because no one writes about even fluffy women as if they’re desirable. She’s intelligent, daring, and just the person to get me out of my shell like she did for Quentin. Looking back that might have been a bit pathetic. It’s about putting people on pedestals a bit like Looking For Alaska. It’s definitely something I needed to hear when I was growing up.
The thing I like now about John Green’s writing is that the love interest is always a person. They have things they have wants and needs and an entire life without the MC in it. Which brings me to Alaska Young (Kristine Forseth). In the book, she was flirty and mysterious and we never got a look into who she was. Pudge (Charlie Plummer)thought she was perfect and so did we. Everyone’s perfect Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
Returning to the book this last week, I felt bad for Alaska. Knowing what happens to her and really listening to her this time though she broke my heart. Not because of her sudden exit from our lives but, that she was really and truly failed by the people around her. She asked for help with every breath and no stopped to even ask her if she was okay. I remember being like that when I was really going through depression badly. Literally telling anyone who would listen about the pain I was in. I knew I wasn’t faking it well enough for people not to notice but, no one stepped in when there was time to spare for them to save her. Her boyfriend Jake also must have had a terrible time in the book but, we never see what he went through even though they were still together and he’s on a phone call with her only an hour before she dies.
The show takes what is about a six hour audio book to read and blows it up into a full television series. It takes away a bunch of the mystery showing scenes that are completely from Alaska’s point of view and really show us in more ways than one what she was really going through. I think they were trying to make her a more three-dimensional character but, I feel it took a little away from the latter half of the book. It’s only two episodes which encompass the mystery that is Alaska young and kind of ends in an anti-climatic breeze. Maybe it’s not about why she died instead, about the person who died and the spot they used to take up in their lives.
Thank you Tanya Lao for probably the only good picture of these two.
Chip (Denny Love) to me was way more impactful to me in the show. Whereas in the book even though the things he got Pudge to do were engaging Colonel himself wasn’t. We understand he’s mad at the rich people for being rich and being assholes we don’t really get to much more of him than that. He’s angry and he holds grudges. In one of the best additions to the story, we get the Cottilion scene. For the first time, we actually see Chip as a multi-faceted individual. He tells his friends there is a truce during the debutant ball and it’s about Sara (Landry Bender). And it was so heartbreaking watching him come to her rescue for him to be shot down so publicly. I knew I was invested in the show seeing them sitting in the downpour of the sprinklers. And she knows and understands him so well at that moment… It was such a beautiful scene between the two of them. It just hurt to watch them inevitably break up. And watching her get together with Longwell felt like such a betrayal to the audience as well.
One of the major problems I have with this adaptation is the way they handled Takumi (Jay Lee). I think Jay Lee’s performance is spot on my problem I guess is how his character doesn’t really get his moment to shine. In the show, it’s only hinted that he may have feelings for Alaska. In the book, when it comes to light, he says one of the most impactful lines of the book it really frames the whole thing differently. “You don’t have a monopoly on Alaska.” He basically tells Miles he doesn’t own grief. Her memory doesn’t live and die with him. That really hit me ten or so years ago and it was kinda sad not having this scene in the show. It really repositions the book and shows how there’s a bunch more going on in scenes that we didn’t see. Takumi keeping his last memory of her to himself was also a good character moment.
The final character I want to highlight is Mr. Hyde (Ron Cephas Jones). If I’m being frank I don’t know how to talk about him. His backstory is so sweet it makes my heart full and every time he came around I’d hang on his every word. He has always been the wise man in the book but, even more, now he has already to some degree walked all their paths and feels a bit of his own regret that he couldn’t save Alaska. In the miniseries, it’s shown even more how much it pains him to write her question on the board and what it means to see it there.
There’s probably a lot more I want to say about Looking for Alaska. It’s definitely a book I’m gonna keep with me for a long time. I love stories about mental health because I feel that talking about things always makes the burden a little lighter. Like in the book, we all have our crosses to bear but, I think talking about them can put a new perspective on them. Quoting one of my favorite games… “The world ends with you.”
Warren Dalton 
You must be logged in to post a comment.