This morning I did what is kind of becoming my usual Saturday thing: go to Seattle Coffee House, get a coffee, and then attempt to work on some sort of writing project. I barely got anywhere today, but maybe next time I’ll try reading something beforehand to get my brain working. Also, this morning I returned a movie I rented from Blockbuster, and on the way home I saw RP driving through the Red River and Clarkson intersection. He seemed pretty excited about something.
I pre-ordered Passion of the Christ from Blockbuster. I figured that that movie would be worth owning. I don’t own too many DVDs since I usually just rent them. If I’m depressed or upset at something, or someone, I can just pop in a DVD and be reminded of the Cross. I wonder what kind of effect that movie would have on you if you watched it on a regular basis.
So as I’m walking home from my Red River adventure I saw an interesting scene: I saw a mother, and about five children sitting together on the front steps of their house. It sounded like they were having a family discussion about money. One of the boys said he had four hundred dollars in his bank account, I guess he felt that he could be their salvation. That scene probably would have made a good portrait: five kids and a mom sitting on their front steps working out their problems and family issues.
I found this whole scene significant because I just finished watching a movie today called, Pieces of April. They labeled the movie as a comedy, but as depressing as this may be to man kind, the movie seemed very real. Maybe I just have a misperception of what comedies are; I tend to usually think that they are supposed to be fake in order to make us laugh. But I thought the portrayal very real. I could relate to the impulsiveness and irrationality of the characters’ behaviour. The dad’s ongoing struggle to create the perfect family made me think: life has a tendency not to turn out the way we intended. The movie was full of unusual and awkward people with strange behaviours and philosophies, but that’s normal. When I was in Attikokan on Wednesday my small bladder seemed to be attacking me quite a bit on the drive there. I went to stop at one of those small road side restaurants to use the washroom but as I walked into the building, the man inside said nothing and just shook his head at me. He was a little bulky so as he shook his head, the fat on his cheeks sort of just wobbled around, and his eyes were almost bulging out of his head.
What made me really like Pieces of April was the ending. It was beautiful, and I’ll leave it at that. 
Life never seems to turn out the way we expect it to… My OAC independent study was about expectations; the thesis was that expectations on one’s life produces future guilt. After I wrote that essay, I tried to throw away most of my crazy dreams of life after high school, which is why I enrolled in CS at Lakehead. I have seen a lot of people in high school do this, they come of with a plan, a scheme, to get them through life as easily and painlessly as possible. But then they end up screwing everything up.
Unless your plan involves obeying Jesus Christ, you probably will screw everything up.
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