You might think this list is going to be overflowing with happy, "feel-good" movies. Someone is redeemed. Someone overcomes adversity to fall in love. Someone discovers the true meaning of life. WRONG! Stay away from these films; they're totally the wrong approach. Watching alleged happy movies when you feel that your own life is at a low point will just make you wanna blow your head off with a rifle. (NOTE: don't go anywhere near "Bambi," "Dumbo," "Lady and the Tramp," "ET," "It's a Wonderful Life," "Miracle on 34th Street," "Old Yeller," or "Scrooged." Don't even have them in your house. If you own copies, give them to a friend to hold for you until your life is back on track--trust me on this.)

You need to watch films that will make your life, such as it is, look better, or at least seem tolerable. In other words, you need to see other people suffer. You need to see people being tortured by self-doubt. Selling their souls. Choosing money over love and true feelings. Being attacked by huge crows. Don't get the concept yet? Don't worry, you will by the time you finish the list. Here's "The Top Ten Movies to Watch When Your Life Kind of Sucks."

10. "Showgirls"
No explanation necessary.

9. "Vertigo"
Sure, your life might not be great, but at least you're not the Barbara Bel Geddes character   in "Vertigo." You know, the "great gal" who the leading man/woman really likes and is always pals with, confides in and depends on, while he/she actually dates, loves, and marries someone else. Hey, wait a minute--I AM that character. I always fall for girls who just wanna be my friend but they actually date someone else. Crap.

8. "The Best of Everything"
Stephen, I know you're about to faint right now, but calm down. I DO love this movie; it's excellent--but in a car wreck, nostalgic kind of way. Everybody in it is fabulous to the max--their clothes are fabulous, New York looks fabulous, the Seagram's building is fabulous, even the office furniture is fabulous. But come on, women have to get jobs as secretaries, and the assumption is that they're only getting said jobs to find husbands. The ones who don't find husbands are either bitter old maids or have dead-end affairs with married men. And the boss is an old lush who spends most of the day drinking and then pinching the secretaries. Oh yeah, and if you have sex before you get married, you'll either get pregnant and lose the baby (since it was conceived in sin, after all) or end up falling out a window after you go insane, like poor Suzy Parker did. Fabulous or not, the overriding message in this film is that the only thing that will make a woman truly happy is staying "virtuous" and then marrying some man. And to that I say, fuck the patriarchy and the horse it rode into town on.

7. "Bram Stoker's Dracula"
I'm amazed that writers and filmmakers didn't take advantage of the immense erotic possibilities and implications of the vampire legend until the 80s. I'm quite fond of this version of "Dracula" and thoroughly love the way it looks. Plus there's a scene in this film that conveys--at least in my mind and experience--what it's like to smoke opium and then have sex. But it makes the list, because hey, even if your life bites at least you haven't been woefully miscast in a major motion picture, like Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, that you're then given responsibility for ruining. And the fact is that they did kind of ruin it. (Don't confuse this with "Bram Stroker's Dracula--that's on the gay porn list.)

6. "Waterloo Bridge"
The Robert Taylor/Vivien Leigh version from 1940, not the James Whale version of 1931--that one's too harsh even for me. In a nutshell: this film proves that love does not conquer all, nor does everyone but you live happily ever after.

5. "Caged"
I can definitely see advantages to being in a woman's prison right now, at least date wise. Anyway, you watch "Caged," because you can say at least the little kitten you find in the snow isn't getting stomped to death by a junkyard-dog mean, ugly 6' 2" prison matron who then shaves all your hair off. To the best of my knowledge this movie isn't commercially available on VHS or DVD; but I have a copy. Ha.

4. "Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte"
Hmm. . .where to start with this freaky cult classic? Married lover Bruce Dern's head and hand didn't go missing at your fancy dress ball? Then for the rest of your life everyone assumes that you axed him? You're not a rich, eccentric, aging southern belle? (Wait a minute, I am an eccentric aging southern belle. Hey, but I'm not rich--yeah, that's the ticket.) The state isn't trying to tear your cool antebellum house down to build a highway? Your seemingly sweet-as-sugar cousin isn't trying to drive you insane and rob you blind? You've never been called a "smirking Judas?" You're not Agnes Moorehead as hillbilly maid Velma, in an embarrassingly over-the-top performance? (That, P.S. was actually nominated for an Oscar! And eerily resembles Jodie Foster in "Nell.") This totally excellent film has it all: Desperation. Entrapment. Mental collapse. Treachery. The list goes on and on in this boy-howdy-are-people-suffering bonanza.

3. "The Omen"
There are multiple reasons to watch this one, but here's the summary: at least they didn't kill your baby, bash its head in, and replace it with the antichrist, who, BTW, is going to kill you before the end of the movie.

2. "Deceived"
A close contender for number one; think of "Deceived" as first runner up rather than number two. This Goldie Hawn film absolutely terrifies me. Really, it's the movie that scares me most in the world because it's about the scariest thing in the world-- finding out you really didn't know someone you thought you knew. In this case, Goldie Hawn marries some guy, lives with him for almost six years, has a kid, and THEN finds out he's not who he says he is and is living a completely secret life on the side. Plus, at the end of the movie he even tries to kill her. Ouch! "Deceived" even makes me look like a good judge of character.

1. "The Birds"
"The Birds" is of my favorite movies at any time, but I really like watching it now. It tops the list because you can say your life pretty much blows, but at least: --Birds of all kinds aren't trying to peck you to death
--Some woman in a diner isn't calling you "evil, evil"
--You don't have to hold a piece of cotton on your forehead in a really spazzy and uncomfortable way through an entire scene, because Hitchcock obviously thought it was hilarious or was punishing you --You don't have to wear the same outfit for three days in a row. (It is a totally groovy weekender, but come on--three days?)
--You're not getting motor oil and blood on your fabulous taupe suede gloves
--You're not involved in some weird lesbo dynamic with Suzanne Pleshette. Okay, forget that one. I'd kind of kill to be involved in any kind of lesbo dynamic at present.
and last but not least,
--When you were 11 your mother didn't run off with some "hotel man from the east."

And that's my list. I've watched all of these since June, and I'm sure I'll watch some of them again before next year. (I'll watch "The Birds" anytime it's on TV.) If you have any comments, feel free to send them. I'll read them, but I'm not changing the list.

Notes From Limbo

As I said in the intro, I did want to mention Thanksgiving. And not just that it's a "holiday" that really commemorates us stealing this country from the Indians. (Just one reason why I generally stay home by myself.)

This year I feel like I have more to be thankful for than when I actually had a life, career, and an income. Really. Even though I had all that stuff, I didn't like it much. After all the big changes I had gone through the year before, after buying every electronic toy, pair of shoes, and pricey piece of lingerie I thought I needed. Even after all that, I still wasn't all that happy. But because I was busy actually living that life, I didn't take the time to think about where it was going. Or where it wasn't going.

Now that Fate has given me loads of time and not much else, I have the chance to totally remake and redirect my life. I'll admit I've been kicking and screaming about this "chance" until recently, but an excellent teacher helped open my mind to the possibilities in this situation. So forced or not, I do see this as an opportunity. I still don't have all the answers I need about why it's happening this way, but I have more of them than I used to.

Being thankful doesn't mean I walk around grinning and humming "Que Sera Sera" all day. I'm still way not happy about having my credit ruined and having to wait for an unemployment check to come before I can buy a freakin can of paint--and that's assuming I can even spend any of it on paint, which some weeks I just can't. And I do still get depressed and just plain pissed off some times. But those periods aren't the majority anymore. (Although I can't say I'm looking forward to Christmas like I usually do. . .)

Nor does it mean I'm gonna run off and join the Peace Corps or something. (Circus, maybe, Peace Corps, no.) The life I'm creating includes me getting a bitchin creative job, making a nice amount of money and generally kicking ass in a major way.

I'll still buy some things I want--including a new tattoo--, I'll still goof on people, I'll still be a sarcastic wiseass, and I'll still try to find a pumpkin big enough to hollow out and wear over my head on Halloween and scare kids. But ultimately, and inwardly, I will be a different, and I hope better, person. "Wealth," "success," and even "happiness" mean different things to me than they used to. My motivations and priorities have changed, because I now understand that we're not just body and mind, we're also spirit. And if you don't pay at least as much attention to your spirit--every single day, NOT just when your life takes a down turn--as you do the other two, you're wasting your time here.

Here are the new less significant lessons:

Don't assume you can melt any caramel-like substance and put it on an apple.
Man, this was a shocker. FYI, if you're thinking about doing this, the Snickers Apples came out much better than the Peanut Butter Kisses Apples.

The quick and easy way to change your outlook is by changing your physical surroundings.
My bedroom renovation is progressing, and I finished the ceiling--it's indigo with gold, silver, and glow-in-the-dark stars. The wooden beams make the whole look, rustic and bitchin. Now if you lie on my bed you have the coolest view ever. Really you should see it, and that's not just a line. (Unless you're a cute girl and it's working--in that case, call me. Collect.) Anyway, it's amazing how much this smallish change has affected me.   (If you want to steal this idea, you better have a beamed ceiling. If you don't, it'll look too cloying and just won't work.)

Many people who profess to always "say what they mean" generally don't.
They probably won't even come close. You can have a multi-hour conversation during which you have a strong feeling someone is trying to tell you something, something specific, but she never actually comes out and just SAYS it. Instead, the whole time she goes from topic to unrelated and weirder topic/statement, none of which seem to make much sense, at least not to you, and you're not even drunk. Then you get home and say, "I think something just happened. But I have no idea what. Or why. Uh, but I have a feeling it wasn't good."