Sunday, February 19, 2012

Celebrity Crush

    We live in a society that puts an incredible amount of worth upon actors and actresses. Think of when you read a magazine. We're so fascinated with these people who perform in movies and TV shows, we read about their trips to the grocery store. We look at pictures of them grabbing their morning coffee. The average person is just short of obsessed with at least one celebrity. However, this is only natural when they're portrayed as characters that we admire so much in stories. This is where the term "celebrity crush" comes in. Every person has had an irrational crush on a celebrity at one point or another.
    This trend has been going on since the beginning of pop culture. For the girls, there was Elvis, for the guys there was Marilyn Monroe. In my parents day, there was David Cassidy and Farrah Fawcett. Most girls of this age fantasize about men like Ryan Reynolds, Bradley Cooper, James Franco, or (one of my personal favorites) Joseph Gordon Levitt. It's easy to see why these actors are so dreamy. Besides their dashing good looks, they are portrayed in romantic comedies as the all-around good guy who will make you laugh and bring you breakfast in bed. In action movies, they're seen as heroes who will brave any danger to protect you. However, there is one celebrity crush of mine (and I am sure that I am not the only one), that I will absolutely never understand.
    Here I am, sitting watching Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, seeing as Johnny Depp frolics around in black eyeliner and dread locks, and I can't help but wish I was Penelope Cruz, his leading lady. If you think about it, there's really nothing attractive about this man. He's a forty-something year old guy. He's portraying an unwashed, borderline homosexual pirate wearing more jewelry than I even own. What is it about this guy that makes girls swoon at the sight of him? Is it the pirate accent? Maybe the captain's hat. Or perhaps there's just something positively irresistible about the life of piracy, the spray of the sea, and the mystery of mermaids. Whatever it is, it's enough to make me (and just about every other girl who's ever seen the movies) to overlook Johnny Depp's lack of sanitation in depicting Captain Jack Sparrow.
    Apart from Captain Sparrow, all of my celebrity crushes starting from childhood are relatively normal when compared to other girls my age. Everything started with The Beast from Beauty and the Beast. After he turned into a prince, it ruined everything. The Beast was so sweet and wonderful. Then, for the longest time, it was all about Matthew Broderick in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. When he serenades the audience with Danke Schoen, my heart would just melt. Ever since 10 Things I Hate About You and 500 Days of Summer, my go to celebrity crush has been Joseph Gordon Levitt, with his boyish smile and good-natured characters.
    Every girl has her irrational love interests in different actors. For instance, my little sister has recently has acquired a thing for Keven Bacon and Tom Cruise. My other sister's first crush was on Link from the Legend of Zelda games. I have a friend who wanted to marry either Neville from Harry Potter or Harry Osborne from Spiderman for the longest time. Some may say having these crushes is weird or stupid. There's obviously no possibility for a relationship with these characters that we've built up in our heads to be so perfect. However, I see these crushes as healthy. It gives a girl hope that a guy out there exists who will fight of Gaston for you. A man who will help you ditch school and bring you on a joyride throughout Chicago. Even a ruggedly gay pirate who will fight off Black Beard is better than nothing.

Take Pictures, Capture Moments, Preserve Life

    So very often, when I go out on any kind of occasion, no matter how insignificant, I'll grab my camera to bring along. Sometimes I will end up taking hundreds of pictures, other times I won't shoot a single frame. However, I hate if there is ever a moment when I have something I desperately want to take a picture of, and I'm found without my camera. I've been like this for years, ever since my Mom gave me disposable cameras to toy with as a child. Every once in a while, I'll get in the mood to look at old pictures from my childhood, and reminisce about how easy life was back then. Today just happened to be one of those days. However, I thought to myself...what if my house went up in flames? I know that's an awful thing to be thinking about, but seriously. My Mom has dozens upon dozens of photo albums that piece together my history. If they were all lost, there would be no record. Nothing to pass on to my children. So, I decided to start the very long and ongoing task of scanning in the best and most important of these pictures, starting from when my parents first married, up until the digital age when all pictures started being kept on computer files.
   There's something so soothing about looking through childhood photos. Maybe it's because I can look into my eyes as they were once carefree and full of possibilities. Perhaps it just brings me back to some of my fondest memories. Regardless of the reason, they never fail to make me smile and feel a wave of serene contentedness wash over me. I feel so lucky that my parents documented how I changed over the years. From when I was a baby and I looked like a sack of potatoes, through round faced toddler-hood. I can watch as my face matures to look more like my Mother's every day.
   My parents were like me, they would document any occasion. From trips to Disney World to trips to the apple orchard. From when they got a new cat to when the new cat got stuck inside my Dad's shoe. These are the little moments that would have been lost in history if a camera had not been in my Mom or my Dad's hand. So if you ever see my carrying around my big and clumsy camera on a seemingly ordinary day, keep in mind that I am just trying to preserve my life. I know for a face that I will never again look the same as I do today ever again. Each day I grow older, I change, and moments pass that will never come back. I love reliving moments of my past almost as much as I love looking forward to moments to come in the future.

 Me and a Chicken
Possibly My Favorite Picture of All Time

My Dad Loves My Mom

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Blow Out The Candles

     So at this point, anyone who ever reads this blog probably thinks I've either met an unfortunate demise, or decided to completely just stop posting. However, believe it or not, none of the above apply. Unless you consider finals, ACT studying, and summer college program applications qualify as an unfortunate demise. Regardless, I've written about high school angsty stress way too much on this blog, so we're just going to consider that implied at this point, and move on.
     Something I would like to talk about is an upcoming event that should be marked on each and every one of your calendars. In just four short days, it will be the day of birth of the incredibly talented and beautiful author of the well-known blog with at least 12 followers, I May Claim To Know. Yes, it's true, this upcoming Wednesday, I will be turning the crazy and wild age of seventeen. (P.S. all of the above was very sarcastic). Birthdays in general can mean something different to you depending on what age you're turning.
     When you're as young as just a few years, each birthday feels like you're centuries older. The holiday means smashing your face into the birthday cake with your favorite Disney princess or Pokemon on top. As you get older, into the years 8-14, the day means it's all about you. Your birthday means everyone does as you say and does anything to make you happy. Then, in the years 15-18, it's all about the milestones. At 15, you get your permit and you're feeling like you're the coolest teenager alive. At sweet 16, you get your license and you feel as if you're unstoppable. You can wave goodbye to your parents as you're rolling down the driveway, feeling the first waves of true independence.
     I'm turning 17, which at first, I wasn't too impressed with. What real life milestones are there when you reach this age? It's just smack dab in the middle of driving age and adulthood. However, when I thought about it, I came up with a few perks of the old age. First off, I will have had my license for a year, which means the inconvenient laws such as "Only one person outside of the driver's family is permitted in the car while they're driving" and 10 P.M. curfews, are lifted. Also, 17 means I can officially and legally see an R rated movie in theaters without being accompanied by an adult...or a friend who is over 17 to buy my ticket.
     Other than these random tidbits of widened freedom, there are more subtle changes in who you are. At 17, it finally seems like you're grown up. This is the age at which you'll be filling out your college applications. The age in which every thought that consumes your head is "how should I be spending my time in order to look best to my college of choice". The future lying straight out in front of us, but 17 is the age in which we must begin choosing which paths to follow. It's a scary time; that's why as this birthday is slowly creeping upon me, I can't help but feel a twinge of sadness. My youth is slipping before my eyes, and I'm powerless to stop it. I will never be able to return to the carefree days of childhood. I cannot recapture the middle school days of being able to mess up and have it not feel like it's going to destroy my entire future. My teenage milestones are mostly past me.
      I realize that in the grand scheme of life, I'm very young, and that should be something to treasure while it lasts. But I can't help thinking about this birthday and feel a bit of regret. Wishing I could have done it all over again, being truly young. That's why with this birthday, I'm going to do my best to live this year so that at my eighteenth birthday, I won't feel any regrets. Every decision I make, whether it's colleges, majors, activities, etc. Each and every one will be made in regard for what's best for me. That is my birthday resolution.