There is a light that never goes out

Continuing my recent streak of watching only good movies, I saw the engaging near-romantic-comedy 500 Days of Summer today. It was funny, it had a heart, and it was smart - but in the end it questioned the very point I was so certain it was trying to make.

Basically, a boy with a wildly romantic concept of true love meets a girl named Summer (the girl from Elf!) with a cynical but supposedly realistic disbelief in the vague term "love." The boy falls hopelessly in love with Summer, but Summer doesn't return his affection. Sure, she enjoys their time together, but she always looks at their relationship as meaningless fun. Inevitably, it doesn't work out, and the boy is crushed.

The most important scene comes at the end of the film, after the boy has realized he has to move on, whether he wants to or not. While waiting for a job interview, he meets another girl. After talking to her, he shrugs her off as mere coincidence. After all, he already tried putting his hopes and dreams in Summer. She was supposed to be his one; she was his soul mate. The narrator describes his feelings succinctly: If he had learned anything, it was not to ascribe great cosmic significance to a simple earthly event. Coincidence. Nothing more than coincidence.

But then he stops. And he goes back. And asks her to coffee. And then "Oh, I didn't catch your name!" And she, "I'm Autumn."

Sure, it was a cheesy moment, and I do apologize for spoiling it, but it gave the movie a new significance. The seasons were changing. It wasn't about Summer or Autumn or the boy. The ending allows for either interpretation of love being correct. I was so sure it was going to agree with Summer's initial sentiment, mainly because the whole thing felt so much like the anti-love movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. At the end of it all, however, it lands somewhere between Eternal Sunshine and Enchanted. Summer found her love, just not in the boy. She says to the boy late in the movie, "You were right all along, just not about me."

The acting was superb, and the jokes were hilarious. (Definitely the best "Roses are red, violets are blue" punchline I've ever heard!) Sadly, I can not for the life of me remember that boy's name...Tom, right? That sounds right.

Four stars.

How far is too far?

Have you ever been arguing with someone who is clearly wrong but still refuses to see your point of view? There comes a point when you just have to give up on reason. Sometimes you'll keep arguing and arguing and not get anywhere. and you just have to stop. Your argument has gone too far to continue. Usually when personal insults enter the argument you know you've gone too far.

Alternatively, the question "How far is too far?" can be applied to physical relationships, and that is probably what the average person thinks of when they hear that question. Mr. Veazey says that as long as there is no "nakedness" or "sex", you're probably okay. Also, if you aren't married, you shouldn't live together. Ms. Neufeld takes a similar viewpoint but says that the line is in different places for different people. I think the line is always going to be really blurred no matter what people say. Holding hands is universally considered okay, but further on down the line things get murky.

Just get married: at that point anything and everything will fly.

How to ask that girl to prom

A week or so ago I was just walking back to class from an assembly about our upcoming high school prom. I happened to be walking beside my girlfriend, so I was like "Hey, how 'bout you come to prom with me?"

Now, being the traditional girl that she was, she refused my flippant asking and said I'd have to do a lot better than that. Gosh darn. What am I supposed to do? Luckily, all my friends are going through the same issue. You've just got to be creative to get the girl these days!

At lunch, me and the boys had a round table discussion about methods of "popping the Q", or so to speak. Suggestions ranged from sweet, like baking a cookie with "prom?" spelled out in icing, to outlandish, like arranging a bunch of dead bodies to spell out "prom?" in her front lawn.
One guy detailed his affections on a pink slip and left it in his prospect's car.
In the end, after weighing my options, I went with the bodies one.
...Not dead bodies, though, in case you were getting worried.
I got one friend to bend himself into a "P" shape, the next an "R", then an "O", then an "M". Others jumped in, forming exclamation marks and question marks. I believe the product was something along the lines of: "PrOM!???!"
I called her over and presented my handiwork. To my delight, she said yes.