A disappointing ending

Okay, what I really wanted to write a post about today was my dear friend's wedding yesterday. Beautiful and perfect, but I just finished the last 30 pages of a book I have been SAVORING and am so annoyed that I'm posting about it. I'll save the good post for tomorrow.

I've been reading "In the Woods" for a few weeks and was totally hooked. I liked the narration, and the twinned stories. It's about a guy who is a murder detective outside of Dublin. When he was 12 years old he was playing in the woods with his two friends and they disappeared and he was found with bloody shoes and no memory of what had happened. Flash forward 20 years and he finds himself working a murder of a young girl in the same woods.

Here's my issue, and I'm sure in some way it just proves I'm an immature reader, or something, but I need resolution at the end of books. I get that life doesn't always have resolution and that there are always things that don't work out, but it bugs the shit out of me when I don't get resolution from a book or movie. Something needs to come together. It doesn't have to come together neatly, but I want more. In some ways I feel the author has totally copped out. That he or she can't figure out how to end it with the same level of intensity or humor or intrigue or whatever as he or she has written the whole book and therefor just quits before the story is actually told.

Of course this is most bothersome when these are books I actually LIKE. For example, Christopher Moore. His endings suck. I loved the book Lamb. Loved it, like laughed out loud on an airplane, loved it. And then the ending just fell flat (literally for those of you who have read the book). That's how I felt about this book....so much build up and then nothing....so annoyed.

Wooo Hooo...

or, how to make a short story long.

Let me tell you ladies about my day. I was totally stoked to put my national boards box in the mail. In it is all the work I've done to get my certification. Hours and hours and hours. Seriously, alone, the box took like 3 hours to pack. There are 4 entries each with their own envelop an packing list and then a 5th envelop for all the forms, I mean really, you have to verify that all the packing lists are where they need to be right?

But it was done. I went to the post office annex place inside the shell station, which is much less sketchy than it sounds and happily gave my well taped box to the happy little man. He was worried that the pre-printed label which was ON THE BOX would be too hard to see and pulled out a sharpie in order to make it more visible, hey great no problem. Then he flips the box over and proceeds to CROSS OUT the pre-printed, specially placed very important bar code stickers. My number (02701156) had been put on the 73-ish pages of then entry over and over again and needed to match the box. And he crossed it out. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I stopped breathing and was like "wait, no, stop." I took the box back out to the car, calmly looked for the help number on the box and in my NBCT stuff then started hyperventilating. No phone number. I drive home. Open the door and immediately smell shit. I'm greeted by two dogs, Sam and Ru. I'm dog sitting. I look around and see a few small piles of poop. Weird, it's sure stinky, I think to myself. I grimace and attempt to wipe it up. Then upon further examination find a literal cascade of shit going all the way down the stairs. There was a definite problem earlier today, and while both dogs appear fine, at one point in time one of them was NOT alright.

Now, I'm trying to prioritize. I mean, there is crap all over my house but a box that I really, really want to put in the mail, like now. I decide to clean. It takes comet, plastic bags doubling for rubber gloves and at least 3 of my rattiest kitchen towls before I feel like it might be okay.

Back to the first issue, the box. I find the number and explain the predicament to the lady on the phone, "I've got a problem. My box is ready to be shipped. Literally, sealed and in the hands of the post office guy and before I could stop him, he crossed out all the labels. And then I stopped breathing. What do I do?"

"Well, you can start by breathing again." At this point I feel relieved but am so keyed up I start to cry just a bit. She explains that while she also would have wanted to kill him, they open every box and because each envelop is labeled, all the information will go to the right place. It will be okay, it has happened before.

But, not to me. I trusted her, put the dogs in the car and went back to the post office annex. the guy was very apologetic (good thing) and I put it in the mail. My house doesn't even smell like poop and my portfolio is now left to stand alone... either it will or it won't. I've done my part.

A Rant about Hollywood (I'll skip the introduction for later)

So, at the END of my summer I've decided to do this thing for real. I'll show some of the projects I've been working on but first a rant.

I watched 27 Dresses yesterday. It was slightly disastrous. I didn't end up a teary mess, but honestly I finished the movie and was pissed off. Really angry.

Now, I admit that my timing may have been less than stellar. My younger sister K got engaged this weekend and she and her betrothed stopped by on a pretense of hanging out on their way home, they were at the coast, but really so she could show me her ring. Which was great, I wanted to see it and them. I'm super excited for her and love him. They've been together forever and need to get married. I want to be an aunt. Some might say this is anger/jealousy being directed a cultural ideal instead of at my sister whom I adore. I guess this could be true, but really it's Hollywood endings I have a problem with.

So, the whole movie is about how this girl is sweet and wonderful, she helps everyone she knows and is basically a doormat. One could call it kind and generous but anyone who can't say no is a doormat. In the last half hour of the movie she ruins her sister's wedding, confesses her love her boss, jumps (literally) into the middle of a total stranger's wedding, and then lives happily ever after with the handsome cynical man who spends the whole movie not believing in marriage.

No problem right? Happens all the time.

Now this is my issue: she supposedly has this big epiphany. She is able to say no, stand up for herself, and express her own wants and needs. Great. Self-actualization, what we're all heading for, what we all hope for and work towards right? Or at least on a good day. She starts heading in the right direction and then black screen and One Year Later?

Beach wedding. Of course, how could one hope to get past that apex of happiness. The whole damn movie was about her obsession with weddings and the over importance she seemed to place on this idealized day. Maybe for some, even most, people their wedding day is perfect. I've been in 8 weddings (I've performed 5 ceremonies, been the maid of honor, a bride's maid and a reader) and most of those women would not have changed a single thing about their wedding day. Although one claims she should have just gone to Vegas. But, this pinnacle happiness as proscribed by Hollywood. Am I the only girl, single married or whatever who would like there to be something more. Why is a wedding the end all be all?

Or am I just cynical and bitter?