dollop of solipsism

eight for eight. i’m great.

except no country was the big winner with four wins, not five (lost editing to bourne ultimatum (3 technicals for them)).

it’s much more enjoyable watching the oscars in the morning than at night, minus the koreans commentating on everything.

ps. brokeback mountain was robbed. crash is a horrocious movie.

big 8 categories

best picture: no country for old men
best director: the coen bros
best actor: daniel day-lewis
best actress: marion cotillard
best supporting actor: javier bardem
best supporting actress: tilda swinton
adapted screenplay: no country for old men
original screenplay: juno

no country for old men will be the big winner with 5 oscars (picture, supp actor, director, screenplay, editing)

i like to be labeled (you’re passive-aggressive). i like things that make sense (because your father is passive-aggressive). i like knowing about myself (you’ve been since birth). i like names for things (it is a defense mechanism, and with advanced cases, can be diagnosed as passive-aggressive personality disorder). most of all, i like to be special (you’re so vain).

if i were to have some (nonfatal) rare medical condition, that would be awesome. something to the effect of turning into a swan at the stroke of midnight every tuesday. or to have the ability to appear and disappear. i enjoy thundercats, x-men, and harry potter. if only if only i had magical, mutant, or catlike powers. true, these powers aren’t medical or rare—they’re nonexistent…i blame my parents for my normalcy. christ, i can’t even see dead people.

well, one time i did see a ghost. at least, i thought i saw a ghost. it was during high school, and i didn’t sleep during high school. like, at all. i took all the Advanced Placement classes i could, and had tons of homework every night. those things, plus my tendency to procrastinate, equaled a less than ideal sleeping routine. i would go to school, come home, watch jeopardy! with my friends on the phone, take a nap until 8 or 9 pm, do my homework until 3 am, take a 3-hour nap, and go to school again. maybe not even take the second nap. it’s tiring for me to even remember those days. how stupid i was. did i really need to take AP calculus? NO, i didn’t.

anywho. it was during my high school days i experienced my one and only ghost sighting. it was dark and i was sleeping in my room. i woke up and felt a panic i’d never felt before. weight was pressing down on my body, and i felt like i was falling 100 stories down. in reality, i was in bed, frozen. i couldn’t move my body, couldn’t speak. i was completely conscious; i knew i was not dreaming. i could move my eyes. and at that point, i saw a figure standing next to me. a female figure. pale, long stringy black hair. a wide smile, and beady eyes. she was cartoon-like, but definitely not from a saturday morning cartoon. she resembled a drawing from a ’scary stories to tell in the dark’ series and you know how scary those drawings are (those books are ‘challenged books’!).

this lasted for, maybe 20 seconds, maybe a minute. i wasn’t counting; i was furh-ozen. it took every ounce of energy i could muster to pull myself out of the pinned-down state. i shot up in fright and all was normal. it was all in my head, or something. i had no idea what had just happened.

these incidents occurred several times (minus the ghost). once when i slept in ms. thomas’s ninth grade biology class. once during my sister’s piano lesson. at least once in college. each time, i woke up paralyzed. like that line in charade: any morning now, you could wake up dead. and each time, as part of my gaining control process, i would whimper (to gain attention). i believe it might have been audible. i’m not certain. perhaps people thought i was having a sex dream.

i haven’t experienced sleep paralysis since college. my friend wikipedia tells me that most people will experience sleep paralysis at least once in their lifetime. i suffered throught it at least five times. all terrifying. and it is common to have hallucinations during this ‘hypnagogic state,’ which explains the ghost. i sleep way more than i used to in high school, so i know that sleep deprivation is a huge factor in inducing sleep paralysis. even though i never want to undergo that panic-striken, possibly ghost-haunting ordeal again, i do feel like that made me a little bit special. it’s not every day you wake up dead.