postgrad angst

When I graduated, or at least heard that I was six credits away from graduating college, I was filled with the worst sinking feeling imaginable. I never really liked going to college. I was never one for homework, or studying, or doing the papers. I did these things--sometimes--but it was rare when I actually turned them in on time. I was an English-Lit. major when i was an undergrad, though, and I went to a small, private, lavishly expensive East Coast college that no one has ever heard of. All the professors knew me pretty well, and a couple of them I really admired. There were also one or two who I knew I could get over on and didn't have to be prompt or punctual--or even show up everytime--and I took them with the most frequency.

Anyway, even after I decided to stop smoking pot, I didn't take college seriously. I didn't make the valuable connections you're supposed to make there that will ease you into the next phase of your life. It took me six years to get my bachelor's and by that time--considering I'd been in school since I was four years old--I was pretty resigned to the fact that being a student was who I was and what I did and, though I couldn't stand it, I was pretty comfortable with that.

Then, my guidance councelor or whatever she was smiled and said, "You're six credits away from graduation!" She was excited, hopeful, supportive, excited to see a young person get his start in the world. I didn't share the same feeling of joy. My world was shattered. I was paying them all this money and they were just going to cut me loose? Just like that? No warning. Nothing. I felt cold and empty inside.

Kicking and Screaming, not to be confused with the Will Ferrell movie of the same name--about soccer or something--is written and directed by Noah Baumbach, and I'm kinda watching it as I write (this has really been exciting). I don't know if I like this movie. I'm kinda sure that I don't hate it, but I've never been convinced that this is a good film. Olivia d'Abo, Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey are all on the home video release cover, but neither of them plays a large role in the film. Parker, unfortunately, only appears in three scenes. Stoltz is in about six. D'Abo kinda plays the biggest role as the whimsical coffee shop clerk who falls for our de facto hero, Grover (Josh Hamilton). And he falls for her too. Which is nice.

It's one of those movies without a plot and a lot of over-interlectual yammering, which I usually like, though a lot of this yammering is way over-interlectual and the characters basically bust out a collection of quotable quotes like, "Ok, the way I see it, if we were an old couple, dated for years, graduated, away from all these scholastic complications, and I reached over and kissed you, you wouldn't say a word, you'd be delighted, probably, but if I was to do that now it'd be quite forward, and if I did it the first time we ever met you probably would hit me." Or, "I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now. I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory... and I didn't have a good time." Yeah. That kind of stuff.

Anyway, it's about students who've just graduated college and now have to figure out what they're going to do. I watch it everytime it's on, pretty much, and for whatever reason it's on like all the time. It makes me remember that time in my life when I didn't know what fuck else to do but move to California, and it also reminds me how I feel like I'm still stuck in that same frame of mind.