Video killed...me.

Okay, a few things to contend with at the moment, I'm just warning you.

I am buried in my house. Not literally, of course, but given that the Washington area received almost two feet of snow over the past 30 hours, there was naught to do today but sit around and work on stuff, really, in between bouts of guilt-induced activity. I had purchased some supplies for this crafty thing I have on deck (I know, I know) and some Vodka and a variety of cured meats and was fairly certain I was set. Also I was going to finish watching Elf which I cannot finish and if you read Twitter and/or my Facebook newsfeed (get out of my Facebook newsfeed, freak job) with any regularity you would know that everyone is watching Elf. It is a four alarm Christmas conspiracy. 

Where my Christmas Vacation people at? Doesn't anyone around here watch Scrooged, one of the best holiday movies ever? 

No it's all ELFELFELFELFELFELFELFELFELFELF. Screw Frank Capra, says the world. I want my Will Ferrell. 

The world is a hollow tree. 

Anyway, it is really beautiful outside now that I am not doing last night's white-knuckle ride of death from Germantown to my parents' house, which is not and never will be funny even in retrospect, it will always suck just as very much as it did last night. Horrible, friends. HORRIBLE. I refuse to fair weather pray so I was doing that ridiculous, "Oh my GOD I'm a good person right?" litany in my head. "I still have things to accomplish and DO oh SHIT is that Jacob Marley over there behind that tree? I can't tell because of the white out conditions on this icy snow emergency route that is generally a deer-laden death trap anyway." 

The early sleet was the issue, because it made things slippery on the road immediately and no matter what the idiots in SUVs who are going 50 miles per hour think, there is just no way to tell what will make a little movement turn into a slide and some of the hills I was on are not hills I want to slide on at all in thousands of pounds of metal heading towards trees and buildings. I am the dork who will go five miles per hour no matter how loserish I may appear because I trust nothing, especially not black ice and other drivers, and guess what? When I'm alive when I get home the person flipping me off will never see me again. 

I should probably indicate that among my weird issues with life is a real sadness about people who die in weather events - like the morning after when it's all sunny and melting it's horrifying to know that someone died because they were on the wrong icy road at the wrong time, just passing through. Same deal when the water calms down after someone died in a squall. Unbearable to me. 

It was no joke and the worst part of it was that I knew I was out until after the snow started falling for perfectly illegitimate and stupid reasons. This involved a trip not only to Wal-Mart (where I never go. Desperate times.) but to the grocery store at 11 p.m. that resulted in this sort of view of the chip/snack aisle

Those things in the gold bags down there at the end must really suck. Must be an off-brand pretzel or something. 

And then a hellish wait in line that included a few special souls, first of all the lady next to me who was inspecting the cart of the young couple in front of her going, "All you need is BEER, DVDs, and your PREFERRED METHOD OF BIRTH CONTROL I SEE YOU HAVE CONDOMS why are people concerned with TOILET PAPER and they crack me up with their PAPER TOWELS." 

Sorry, she was a yeller who spoke with no punctuation. I was also plagued by those people who do not understand that protocol when lines are out of control is to STAND in the vertical aisle directly across from the register you are going to so that you are NOT blocking the main HORIZONTAL aisle. And this protocol does not entail moving as closely up on my ass as you can and being all weird like if you stay on the appointed vertical side until there is reasonable room to move up that people are going to cut you off. It's not going to happen, and if they try, you have the power of protocol (I couldn't care less about protocol usually but in the grocery store I'll invoke it a million times over) and like 50 other people on your side at that point. 

Because you know what I will do if you move that close to me, destroyer of my happiness? I will refuse to put the little grocery barrier thing down on the belt that removes mine from yours. I will do that because I am a mean, mean little girl with anger issues who solves problems ineffectually in large groups of strangers. And also because you are an ass and I am your karmic justice in black boots. 

Actually what I did last night because I was so over her huffing and puffing with her five items behind me was move out of the way and gesture to her to go ahead of me, not because I'm a nice person but because she was driving me crazy breathing down my neck and sighing (I hate sighing. I hate when people set off my personal space alarm.) And then she had the nerve to get irritated: "I wasn't mad at you." (ed. note Good, thanks. I'm hiding my rage sufficiently well myself. Just put. your. stuff. on. the. belt.) I've done it before and I'll do it again. I will move out of the way to get you on yours, for both of our sakes. 

The grocery store really is a horror show. 

Another wintertime rant while we're at it and I'll just get it out of the way: the people who drive around with piles of snow on their hoods and roofs should be fined huge sums so they will stop doing this or they lose their right to drive. They are related to and are often the same as the people who brush off a circle of snow on their driver's side window and clear nothing else off, so they're basically driving with windows - all windows, including rear views - covered with snow and I don't know how this is possible. When pressed I have to say that I'm more bothered by the first group though because it's really not helpful to be driving behind someone or the road and have whatever frozen mass is on top of their car come flying off and slamming into your windshield. 

Do the right snow thing, really. 

#########################################

I am agitated perhaps because I spent three hours in my basement last night trying to record myself on video.

I knew it would be difficult but I had no idea to what degree. 

I'm applying for something for which I need to submit a video of myself primarily and I wasn't at all sure I could do it given my total hatred of being on video or watching myself on video or worst of all having other people watch me on video. 

So I decided I had to do it, because even if I don't win (and it's entirely almost 100 percent certain I won't, just saying) there's nothing like a totally awkward and uncomfortably self-revealing activity to add to my current end-of-2009 review. 

It's really, really difficult for me. 

It's almost like it triggers dissociative identity disorder, like there's this person I think I am, I mean, just the shell of her, you know - and then there's this person I see talking at me in the computer box and it's very strange and difficult to correlate the two because they are NOT THE SAME. 

I mean, I know all about the chins, trust me. I just don't necessarily feel like watching them played back at myself. 

And not only is there the wacked out way I feel about watching myself talk, it's what I hear myself saying. There is a content and flow issue here, and it's horrible. I have to admit at some point - like, oh, maybe about 10 seconds in - it starts to get funny because I'll try to address the question I'm supposed to address in this clip and I start talking about stuff that has absolutely no relationship to the question at hand. Or I'll start out on topic and then all of a sudden it's like, "Whoo, let's take THIS left turn right here, it's a PARTY" and I'm talking about something completely ridiculous and unrelated and...yeah. 

So then I have all of these odd screen shots of me making faces at myself as I go to hit the "stop" button and I'm saying stupid things like "Well that won't work," and "GAH, DUMB" and "What the HELL did I say that for?" and "Oh well, that was wrong too." I also have strange facial expressions. Why has no one told me this? I cannot sit still. I cannot keep my eyes still and I have an odd tendency to look up at the ceiling. I move my head back and forth with reckless abandon. The hell? 

Anyway, I am struggling with video. 

There is deeper commentary here about self-esteem and pushing one's limits and why can't the world be kind and why can't I be BEAUTIFUL and the type of person who chases video cameras around to show the world my 1,000-watt awesomeness. But that's really not anything I can analyze right now without plunging myself into some depressing intellectualization of something that doesn't need so many words to describe it in the short or long run. 

And believe me, I truly know how fairly unimportant this is in the long run. I do not think it is more important to be comfortable with one's appearance in a moving picture show than it is to be good or kind or whatever fa-la-la-la-la else. I have some friends going through some heavy life things right now, some stories this weekend alone in this crazy snow that tell a lot about why we're really here and just how difficult this life can be and it makes me feel stupid to be focusing on the surface. 

But this is just part of my story in the here and now. It's a pretty simple fact that it makes me uncomfortable and I think I'd be better off if I didn't feel that way. I think I'd be more functional and productive if I raged against this bullshit a little bit, if that makes sense. It's something I apparently feel the need to contend with and do, maybe to inoculate myself against it in the future. 

I have so many things I want to do next year and that's where my focus already is. If I could I'd skip Christmas and go straight to the new year, and I say that in the most non-nasty way possible. I'm tired of it, honestly, and again, I don't mean this in a bitter or unfriendly way at all. It's just the way I feel.

I don't have any time to screw around, and all the barriers are, really, in my own head. 

This dumb video is also totally due tomorrow and I have no game. So I'm going to go for a walk and take some pictures. 

Comments

[kdiddy]

I haven't been able to get into Elf, but I am all Christmas Vacation all the time. I've watched it 4 or 5 times already since, like, early November. I'm also very pro-Scrooged. I would like to watch It's a Wonderful Life but my husband is one of those people that hates it. Jerk.

[Laurie]

I knew I liked you. Christmas Vacation is on in the background without fail during our extended family Christmas shindigs. Scrooged is more for my own late-night emo viewing. ;)

They're showing It's a Wonderful Life on the big screen at the artsy theater near my house so I may have to go do that this week. I've already caught just the end on tv and broken down once like I always do - might as well go for the full effect.

[sassymonkey]

The fake husband loves Scrooged. And we've seen Christmas Vacation at least 3 times this year. Not all at ones mind you but it is on every single channel and we keep stopping while flipping to watch it for five minutes.

[AnnQ]

OMG, I love Elf!!! I also love Scrooged :-)

[Rayne of Terror]

Bad Santa is my favorite Christmas comedy. I get that about video. Ther person I see in video or film is not the same as the person I see myself as. I avoid cameras for that reason, then I wonder years later why there aren't any photos of me.

ps I came here from Mom 101

[Heather clisby]

Totally with Rayne on Bad Santa - rented it by accident one year and it's now the family favorite.