Top 2500 Feelings

An excerpt from We Feel Fine, a book that catalogues human emotions based on blog posts found all over the internet.

Director Wes Anderson working on the stop-motion puppets for Fantastic Mr. Fox

This movie was so cussing good. Watch the behind-the-scenes featurette here.

Babies (2010)

This visually stunning new movie simultaneously follows four babies around the world - from first breath to first steps. From Mongolia to Namibia to San Francisco to Tokyo, Babies joyfully captures on film the earliest stages of the journey of humanity that are at once unique and universal to us all.

Watch the gorgeous trailer in HD here. The last shot of the goat drinking out of the baby’s washing tub is the definition of CUTE OVERLOAD.

End of an Era

(Excuse me while I make the requisite “It’s the end of the Aughts!” post)

It wasn’t until I saw those Best of the Decade posts on the AV Club that I realised that the ’00s will be over in about a month. I can hardly even wrap my mind around the fact that the year is ending - heck, I’m still writing August for all my dates - so this is kind of a “holy shit!” moment.

I could make lists (best albums, best movies, best television shows…) to define what about these ten years were to me, but this decade was more than just favourite things. The great thing about being born in 1989 is that you can clearly correspond each stage of your life according to each decade - playgrounds, cartoons and gold stars for good work belong to the ’90s, while 2000-2009 encapsulates the trauma and the complete high of being a teenager.

Obviously the past ten years is where I’ve gained the most emotional maturity, and yet, I think I’ve still got so much more growing up to do. I’ve had revelations and realizations, but not enough. I’ve had adventures and amazing experiences, but I want more. I’ve met a ton of incredible people, but I haven’t been great at keeping enough of them around. I’ve found something that I absolutely love doing, but I could be better at it. You’d think that by 20 I’d have ticked off several things I said I’d do, instead, I’ve added hundreds more. And you know what? I can’t wait to get started on all of them.

To Build a Home

There are layers of paint underneath the bright yellow outermost shell on the walls of my room. The dark, midnight blue that you only see in kids’ rooms is the very first layer, covered with my dad’s drawings of ferris wheels and clowns in pencil, from back when my older brother and I still shared a bedroom. The colours changed as we grew up, and became girlier when he moved into the study room next door after we decided we were too old to be sharing a room (and I got creeped out by his incessant sleep-talking). In the last few years, it’s gone through various shades of yellow. I remember, just before I left for Melbourne, the sun was setting one evening, and my sheer violet curtains were catching the soft perfect light of dusk and spreading it across the walls and ceilings, and I thought to myself I never wanted to leave.

I used to sit on over-turned laundry baskets and pretend to be a conductor while singing Train Whistle Blowing in the backyard. Hot days would immediately be made better when my dad brought the kiddie pool out. A few years ago, the grass was covered in tiles and a dining table was set up - it was a site for steamboat dinners and cramming for exams under the glow of citronella candles.

The chairs in my living room were not the cushy, comfortable sort of sofas where you could sink yourself into, but you could lean way back in them by adjusting the seats, and I felt a sort of pride about them because nobody else had chairs like them. The glass on the coffee table had a huge crack across one side from the time my younger brother was cycling indoors and the bicycle fell on it and okay, to this day, I’m still annoyed that he wasn’t even properly scolded for that. I would fall asleep on the sofa after hours of DVD-watching, and wake up later on with both legs numb and achey from lying in a strange position. Back when my parents used to bother with Christmas trees, an entire corner would be covered in all sorts of gifts. My favourite present ever was a Snoopy tent that was made to look like a house, with windows and all. My brother’s one was a boyish looking tent with a periscope at the top, and it was a treat when we were allowed to set them up in the living room and pretend to be camping.

We had the most fabulous birthday parties as kids, with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cakes and awkward family karaoke sessions. When my brother turned 4 or 5, my uncle paid a magician to entertain all the children, and we sat on a plastic sheet in the front garden to watch him, me in Auntie Emma’s lap. The magician turned a fake rabbit into a real bunny, which we got to keep, but it ended up escaping from its cage and eating all my mother’s chilli plants. We were never that good at looking after tiny pets.

In the last few months, our house has hardly been lived in. While I was away studying in Melbourne, my parents and younger brother had moved to Perth, and my older brother was busy with National Service, only coming home once every week. Most of the rooms are empty now. You’d think the lack of furniture would make them appear bigger, but they only seem to feel closed in and claustrophobic to me. There’s dust over almost every item, and the toilet ceilings have strange dark spots on them from leaking water. If my parents are going to continue staying in Australia, it’s pretty pointless to have this house here, so they’re thinking of selling, which is a most depressing thought. I always thought I’d still be staying here for many more years, and I don’t think I could bear the thought of another family living in a place so familiar and dear to myself.

Even though it’s beginning to feel more like a house and less like a home, my heart is still anchored to it - to the fact that it takes me ages to walk in from the nearest bus-stop, to the unused third-storey balcony that floods after it rains, to the chip in the shower floor tile in the pink bathroom, to the full-length mirror outside my parent’s bedroom where I’d spend way too much time obsessing over how I looked, and to the  to the yellow walls of my room and the glow-in-the-dark stars that don’t work anymore still stuck to the ceiling, and to those perfect stormy nights where I’d stay up watching the lightning streaks out my window and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling. I just have to find a reason to stay.

GPOYW!

My hair has only been grown past my shoulders twice my entire life.

The first took place smack in the middle of my awkward phase when I was 12, and paired with a bad centre-part. Fortunately, self-awareness took over soon enough and I went back to my usual short hair.

The second (now) is the longest it’s ever been, after 5 months away from home, where I let it grow for two reasons - the cold Melbourne winter, and trust issues with hairstylists. It’s both strange and wonderful being able to put it in a ponytail or bun it up like in these awkwardly taken photographs, but I’m already beginning to miss being the girl with the perpetual bob, wind on the back of my neck and a lack of need for combs and brushes. Oh, and being able to shower under five minutes. I’m thisclose to booking an appointment to have it cut again.

So, what do you think? To keep or not to keep?

Joshua Radin and Ingrid Michaelson - Tonight You Belong to Me