FMLA for blogs (BMLA?)

Last summer I challenged myself to find something to blog about at least once a week. For the most part, I accomplished that and found something to prattle on about at length. Since December, it may appear that this blog has been abandoned, but I think it’s more accurate to say it’s on Medical Leave.

In November of last year, I wrote about my back pain, which I learned was due to herniated discs and mild spinal stenosis. You may have noticed how infrequently the blog has been updated since then. It is not a coincidence. The way that my herniated discs are situated, being seated is the most painful position for me. Unfortunately, I sit down at work all day long. During an average week, I find myself in several social occasions where it is not possible to stand up – attending concerts, hockey games, basketball games, or plays. I have been seeing fewer movies in the theater lately, but I still go to the movies a few times a month. Even if I was in the very back row, it would be weird to stand up through an entire movie while my friends are all seated next to me. Same goes for having lunch or dinner with someone. Playing board games (unless it’s Twister), getting pizza and a movie at someone’s home… pretty much anything you do socially is going to involve sitting down.

So, while sitting down is most uncomfortable, my back is not strong enough that I can do something really active, either. For example, going bowling with friends wouldn’t involve sitting, but I can’t even imagine what kind of damage I would do to myself if I attempted to bowl with my back as messed up as it is. Man I feel old.

Anyway, you get the picture. Sitting sucks. Standing is overrated. Walking is great, and laying down is usually fine. Sitting is the worst. Unfortunately I have not figured out a way to update this blog while walking or laying down. As a result, you have probably missed out on tons of mindless rambling that I may have otherwise put into my blog, if the thought of coming home and sitting down at my desk was not completely unbearable. We are now in the 11th week of 2012. Here is a list of things that I could have blogged about, were my back not hindering me from sitting down to write them…

More random pictures of underwear or advertisements that I make fun of;
The Republican presidential candidates;
The disgraceful mess that Tim Burton seems to be making in the name of Dark Shadows;
The Van Halen concert in Chicago;
The homeless man I went to breakfast with after the Van Halen concert in Chicago (that one actually could have been pretty interesting reading);
A thoughtful analysis of how much less time I have spent with friends since I added HBO and TiVo to my cable package;
More complaining about Barnes & Noble;
My disaster preparedness for the zombie apocalypse;
How much Leap Year sucked this year;
Lots and lots of complaining about how much my back hurts;

As I write this, I’m actually on break at work and typing into a word document that I will copy & paste when I get home. This is beginning to feel like a mistake because I usually get up and walk around while taking a break at work. This already feels like too much sitting. Of course, if I could find a way to make my points more succinctly, I could update the blog more often and it wouldn’t take so long without rattling on for hours. I need to learn to rattle on for minutes and then let it go. I’m not sure that I’m capable of such brevity.

Okay, break is over and I need to get back to other sitting-down related work things. Since November I have also been attending physical therapy on a regular basis and it has been helpful with alleviating the pressure on my nerves and spine. I have also had two epidural steroid injections. They may or may not have been helpful. The most recent was two days ago, so their success or failure is TBD. It is also directly related to the success or failure of updating this blog, so the good news is, if I start to update more frequently and at length, that means I must be feeling better. But for now. Ouch.

Thanks for reading. I'll be back! (No pun intended.)

I am not quitting, so I must be getting fired

I began working for Barnes & Noble in 1998. At that time the Coral Ridge Mall was still being built and when I heard that Barnes & Noble had signed on to have a store in the mall, I immediately went to the nearest location to get the lowdown on the hiring process for that store. I remember how giddy I was during my interview. I loved to read, loved to write, and I was ready to throw on the Cat in the Hat costume and start working that day. I was hired (as everyone was at that time) on a temporary basis, with the knowledge that they were hiring more people than they needed to assemble the store, not everyone would remain on staff after the store opened.

For about a month, my new B&N coworkers and I parked in the mud of the unfinished mall parking lot, and walked on cardboard and wood planks to get to the front door of the store without tracking in the mud. We put the first books ever on the shelves of the brand new Barnes & Noble #2917. It was more than a job, it was an amazing experience.

Opening a new store is a great bonding experience, and the employees got to know each other before we had to be all business casual. Even today, after we have all moved on, I still maintain a friendship with many of these people. I had a wonderful time over many years of working at that store. In the beginning, I worked 32 hours a week, and had a few $.50 wage increases. It was not enough to live on, but I still loved the job. After borrowing a large sum of money from a friend to keep myself from bankruptcy, I had to find a more lucrative full-time job.

Since then I have had four other full-time jobs (each more lucrative than the last) but I never wanted to give up Barnes & Noble. I remained a part-time employee and when I moved out to DC, I transferred to a store in the area. Since June of 2008, I have worked for the same store, giving up my weekends to help pay off student loans and go to a job that I genuinely enjoyed. My full-time jobs have all been in an office environment, where I am exposed to the same people every day. Working at the bookstore has been a wonderful way to get out and meet new people – both coworkers and customers. It exposed me to a lot of things that I would otherwise not have the opportunity to get to know. Not all of these things were positive, there are some people who are shamefully condescending they to people who work retail. For the most part, it has been a good experience. Sadly, the events of the last week have suddenly overshadowed my positive feelings about the company.

I was informed last week that if I did not open up my schedule availability, I would be terminated.

The manager corrected me when I used the word “terminated” because she assured me it was not punitive, it had nothing to do with performance, and if I could work more hours they would be happy to have me. But I am not physically capable of working more hours without killing myself. She said she understood, but gave me no other option. Tomorrow (Saturday, January 28^th) will be my last day with the company. She kept assuring me that I am not being fired, but our conversation was like a mixed-up version of the stereotypical disgruntled employee/employer conversation. “You are NOT fired!” “Well, I am not quitting.” “But we are not firing you!” “Well you must be firing me because I am not quitting.”

Okay, it didn’t go down exactly like that, but it was similar. I have worked the same schedule for the last year. After all of this time, she has told me that it is unacceptable and she needs people with open availability, or at the very least, people who will work 2-3 days per week (6-8 hour shifts). She kept saying, “How many businesses do you know that have employees who work one day a week?” (What I didn’t say out loud: How the hell should I know? I don’t have any inside knowledge of business schedules!) What I did say out loud: “How many businesses do you know that have employees who have worked there for 14 years?” She went on to explain that the book business has changed in the last 14 years. This is obvious. Nothing is the same as it was when I started. The company has adapted to the changing consumer demands, and I understand that they constantly need to make changes. I just don’t happen to understand how terminating my employment factors in.

She went on to tell me that the company needs to save money and there are too many people who take advantage of the company benefits and holiday pay but only commit to limited part-time schedules. (What I didn’t say: Well if you would pay more, then people would be able to work here for a living instead of part-time.) What I did say: I don’t receive any benefits. How am I costing the company money? All she could say was – “Well, you get your employee discount. You can go into any Barnes & Noble in the country and get 30% off."

Really? I am bankrupting the largest book retailer in the country with my discount on occasional book purchases and once-a-week bagel & beverage from the café? That’s a little hard to believe. No, actually, it’s just downright insulting.

But, I have no choice in the matter. As of tomorrow afternoon, I will not be a Barnes & Noble employee - for the first time in nearly 14 years. This is really not how I predicted this adventure would end. I am more than a little pissed off.

The conversation between the devil manager and I took place last Saturday right before she left at 4:00. Of course, I was scheduled until 5pm, so we had this horrible and offensive conversation and I was trying to hold back tears (unsuccessfully), then she gave me a moment alone to compose myself and I had to go back out onto the sales floor for another hour. My face was bright red, my eyes were bulging red and tears leaked out of them. I blew my nose every five minutes. Customers awkwardly avoided me as I watched the clock and waited for a very long 60 minutes to end so that someone could relieve me and I could go somewhere more private. All the time I am thinking – 14 years I have given to this company and this is how it ends?

You can probably tell, I am a little bitter. I am offended by the fact that my length of service means nothing. I understand that if someone with my availability filled out an application, that person would never get hired. It would not be worth it to train someone with that limited of availability. But I am not a new trainee, I am a self-sufficient, reliable and tenured employee. How foolish of me to think that would count for something.

For all practical purposes, I can understand their decision. Generally speaking and all experience aside, someone who works 30 hours is probably going to be a more efficient employee. There are so many trends when it comes to books, and displays are constantly changing, sections are re-categorized from time to time, and only working once a week, I don’t always know where everything is located in the bookstore. But that too is less of a factor because I have been working in the music & dvd department. I know a thing or two about movies. So I really don’t think that the problem was not being oriented with the store. What I think is that the economy has tanked and there are plenty of people who are willing to work for the store minimum. I do not make the store minimum. I am "maxed out" for the bookseller position and I don't even get raises any more. But a new hire would make about $4 less per hour, and probably have a PhD in Anthropology or something. That is the beauty of this economy for businesses. There are always people willing to work for whatever wage you offer to pay them because their other option may be unemployment. And I understand that it’s more profitable for a business to pay someone less and give preference to people who will work whenever you want them to because they don’t have another job to work around. I get it. I see how that could be a more attractive option. But I never expected to get kicked out the door so unceremoniously.

I am less pissed off now than I was last week. I realize that there are people in far worse situations than I am in. Whoever takes over my former shift may need the income more desperately than I do. Perhaps it works out nicely for everyone but me. I am less bitter about the situation than I was at first, but I still think it is cowardly how B&N handled the situation. I may not have put in many hours, but I gave up nearly every weekend for a dozen years to work there. I survived 14 seasons’ worth of hectic holiday shoppers. I had a strong connection to the bookstore and under other circumstances, would have remained a loyal B&N employee. But in one afternoon of breaking this girl’s spirit and then sending her back out on the sales floor to talk to customers while trying not to cry (unsuccessfully), they have all but erased all of those warm feelings that have accumulated over the years. I still have fond memories of the people I have met, and am happy to still have many of them in my life. But I can’t bring myself to show that company any more consideration than they have shown me, and I can’t imagine walking back into that store and having to see that manager ever again. She was successful in getting rid of me not only as an employee, but as a customer, too. I understand that the book business is struggling and they have to adapt if they want to stay in business. But I have very little sympathy for the struggles of the company after the disregard they have treated me with in the last week. I have done my part by saving them all of that money they were wasting by giving me a discount on my weekly bagel at breaktime. You are welcome, BKS shareholders. You are welcome.

*********************************************************************************

[Follow-up edit: I arrived to work on 1/28 to find that I had been scheduled for the following Saturday, 2/4. The store manager never mentioned anything about our conversation to the Asst. Manager who writes the schedule, other than telling him a few weeks ago of her intention to talk to me. So, I am happy to enjoy one more week of employment, but it was like adding insult to injury to learn that the manager didn't find it significant enough to communicate my situation to the rest of the management staff. No one on any level seemed to know about my departure other than the people who I had told directly. How many times can a company burn the same bridge?]

The cookie that made me happy today

Work has been very dull this week and the time goes by very slowly with only a couple of people in the office. After work today I had a doctor's appointment, all in all it has been a very dull week. I left the doctor's office this evening and headed to take the Metro home when I walked by an Au Bon Pain. I am not proud to admit this, but I saw a photograph of a cookie on their sign out front and immediately diverted my course into the restaurant in search of the cookie on the sign that I was determined to make mine. It was an instantaneous reaction and sudden realization that I could not live one minute longer without having one of these cookies. The advertisement was for two new filled cookies - one was two sugar cookies with chocolate hazelnut filling between them, the other was called Florentine with Caramel Creme. It was the sugar cookies with hazelnut that derailed my original plan to go home, so I sought one out and put it in a bag to take to the cashier. While carrying out my mission, I couldn't help but notice the Florentine with Caramel and that was looking even better but I have no idea what kind of cookie that is. It looked a bit like gingerbread so I was not willing to take my chances. I have to be in a certain kind of mood to enjoy gingerbread and I haven't been in that mood for several years.

I took my impulsive cookie purchase up to the friendly cashier and asked her about the florentine cookie. She was not a native english speaker, so we had a bit of a communication problem at first. I asked:

What is the florentine cookie like?

She responded: Yes, we have them. They are over there.

Yes, I saw them over there, but what do they taste like? [she looked very confused by this point, so I go with another choice of words] What flavor?

She says, "Oh, you can try one."
Me: "Oh - no, no. I don't know if I would like them, I'm just curious what they are like."
She says, "Try it."

Suddenly I am the one looking confused because I'm not sure how I am supposed to try the cookie when I don't see any samples or understand how I am supposed to do that. I respond as I usually do in awkward social situations, with an attempt at humor, "Just go up, take a bite and put it back down? Haha."

Completely serious, she says, "Yes."

And I don't know what to do. Certainly it can't be Au Bon's policy to allow people to sample the food and if it is, I suddenly have second thoughts about purchasing their baked goods from now on. But she sees I am confused, "No, don't put it back. But try one. If you don't like it, you can throw it away and I won't charge you for it." (but remember, she had an accent so it sounded much cooler, like "...throw eet avay...")

For some reason, this was a very difficult task for me. First of all, I wasn't ruling out the possibility that there was a language barrier miscommunication happening here, although it sounded pretty clear that I had her permission to take a cookie off the shelf and take a bite. Still, I couldn't walk over there. I had to take a step, turn around... "I'm going to do it." She smiles, "Okay." A couple more steps, "Seriously, I'm going to take a bite." She is now laughing at me, "Do it!" So I grab the Florentine with Caramel Creme and I take a bite and it was not like gingerbread at all. It was like sweet heaven. "Ooh, that is good! Thank you for that, I will take this one, too." And now I am buying two cookies because even though I was completely over the hazelnut, I already had one in my bag. She rung me up and said, "It is my New Year's present to you." and I'm pretty sure she didn't charge me for the second cookie.

I love this woman.

I know this is a silly story and over the course of a lifetime, we all touch the lives of others temporarily and everyone has a few anecdotes like this one where an everyday transaction is turned into a truly pleasurable experience. This was the best thing to happen to me all week. After waiting 15 minutes in the cold for a bus that was late, then another 15 minutes in a doctor's office waiting room, I was accustomed to being ignored. The cookie was such a small gesture, but this interaction with the Au Bon Pain employee brightened my day. Of course, a free cookie will often do that, but it was more than that - the whole interaction was a bit silly, between me thinking it was a miscommunication, to my natural inability to violate everyday decorum and take a bite off of something without clear intention to pay for it. It was fun. I had fun with her. Not to mention, that was a magically delicious cookie.

I thought about not mentioning the specific name of the restaurant because it did occur to me that she could possibly get in trouble for giving away a free cookie. But in the unlikely event that the Au Bon Pain corporate people happen to read this blog, I think they will understand the value of giving away one cookie when it results in someone telling anyone who will listen what a fantastic day she is suddenly having thanks to one kind person at an Au Bon Pain location. Even if it is a grown woman who doesn't know what florentine cookies taste like, yet allows photographs of baked goods dictate her every move. Yep, that's me in a nutshell. Mmm... nuts sound delicious right now. Gotta go, thanks for reading!

Diary of a sleep study inmate

I think it is a weakness of this blog that it doesn’t have any one common theme, it is just random thoughts about my life. I am always conscious of how much less interesting that must make it for people who have not met me personally and from time to time I consider what direction it would take if I followed one common subject matter. One topic that seems to come up far too often is medical problems. I wish that were not the case, but at least I can take comfort that once I reach senior citizendom, I will have found my niche and should have a very robust blog full of aches and pains and ailments. I will make a fine senior citizen someday. Of course, by then I probably won’t even have to type anymore, I will probably be able to hook some wires onto my head and a program will blog away with whatever is on my mind. It will probably look something like this photograph from my latest medical endeavor:

I'm a robot. Beep boop beep.









On Wednesday afternoon I walked through a monsoon to arrive at the Center for Sleep and Wake Disorders at 9pm. I did not leave until after 6pm on Thursday. I don’t know yet what the results were, but I sure hope they find something because that was a very time-consuming and unproductive amount of time spent in a doctor's office.

The reason the visit was so time-consuming is because there were two different tests. The overnight test was a Polysomnogram, which involved wires all over my body – mostly on my head, but also on my finger, face, legs, chest and I can’t remember where else. Throughout the night they monitored my brain waves (creepy!) and my movements to find out why I am always so damn tired. And I am tired all the time. I told them that, but they wanted more clinical information, which is why I had to stay for the entire afternoon.

After sleeping all night with all of the monitoring equipment, they woke me up around 8:40 on Thursday morning and removed all of the wires & sent me off to find breakfast with goop all over my head. I looked like a walking scene from Something About Mary. Yuck. Oh well, I’m sure they’ve seen worse at Whole Foods.

When I returned with breakfast and lunch for the day, they hooked me up to more wires and more goop. The second part of the visit was a Multiple Sleep Latency Test. This involved fewer wires and a series of five naps. Basically, they wait for you to come back from Whole Foods and set you up with a bunch of wires and send you to go back to sleep 90 minutes after you just woke up from a full night’s sleep. Twenty minutes later they interrupt you (either from your nap, or from staring at the ceiling b/c you can’t sleep) and they turn the lights on and make you stay awake for another 90 minutes before they send you down for another nap. Well, that’s not exactly true. They have to do some sort of calibrating before and after the naps, so you lay down and

“Relax with your eyes open. Now relax with your eyes closed. Without moving your head, look to the left, to the right, to the left again, to the right again. Blink five times. Grit your teeth. Relax. Grit your teeth again. Relax. Stick your chin out as far as it will go. Relax. Stick your chin out as far as it will go. Relax.”

This happened before and after every nap. It was weird and I had
these wires all over my brain and I kept thinking to myself, “Can you read my
mind? Are you reading my thoughts right now? Are you recording what I am
thinking? Stalker!” And then of course I couldn’t help but consider if they could read my thoughts, which led me to think of demented and gross things - like what I saw monkeys doing with their excrement at the zoo. Or horribly violent scenes from movies. I’m quite sure that they were not able to read my mind. Not only because I don’t think that sort of science exists, and if it does they’d have to inform me first (although, I was not very thorough in reading those HIPAA forms!), but also because they would have had me certified as insane if they had read my mind. I couldn’t help it. The more I tried not to think of crazy things, the more craziness that would enter my brain.

Anyway, after all of the blinking and the gritting, the lights went out and I put on my fancy eye mask to block out all the light and tried to fall asleep. The first three times, I fell asleep for sure. The last two, I’m not sure if I did or not. After 2pm and a full night’s sleep with repeated naps, it was harder to fall asleep, but when I heard a voice on the intercom telling me to wake up, I was not sure if I had been asleep or not. I suppose I was, or I would’ve remembered being really bored laying there for 20 minutes. I don’t know what they will find after they analyze the data, but I can’t imagine it is normal to get over 9 hours of sleep and still be able to fall asleep upon command. But what do I know? I’m not a doctor.

The weirdest part of the visit was the last dream I remember from my overnight study. I was sound asleep but in my dream I woke up and I was in a hospital. It wasn’t the same hospital bed I was actually in, it was more like a WWII-era hospital with nurses in crisp white uniforms and paper hats. In a movie, it would probably be the set for an asylum for the “Criminally Insane.” But a dream nurse woke me up into a dream world and sent me downstairs to join some other people. When I sat down with the other patients, another nurse came down to tell us that there was a tornado warning, but there was nothing to worry about. I looked out the window and saw a dark funnel cloud in the distance. I said, “Nothing to worry about? It’s coming this way!” and it was – the black funnel cloud quickly moved closer and I said, “We need to get down to the basement! Get away from the windows!” and some of the younger kids said, “Cool!” and ran outside to check out the tornado. I was freaking out and telling everyone I was from Iowa and I knew what a friggin tornado looked like and that was a funnel cloud. Everyone looked at me like I was nuts but I started running toward the basement as the dark cloud enveloped us and passed us. Nothing changed, the building didn't shake and suddenly there was sunlight. It was just a dark cloud. No tornado. As I sat there thinking, “What the f…” I heard the voice overhead, “Okay, it’s 8:40, we’ll be in to disconnect you so you can grab some breakfast.” Freaky.

Between my vivid dream and my crazy thoughts of having someone read my mind, perhaps this blog should focus more on psychological issues. Then again, maybe I'll just leave it alone. I'm too tired to think of a theme.

Straight up

I never realized how often I drop things until it became too painful to pick them up. The once-automatic act of picking up after myself became a daunting task. Think of how many times you drop something - a set of keys, a piece of paper comes off the desk, a napkin off of the kitchen table. No big deal, right? You just swoop down and pick it up. Not me. As soon as that item hits the floor I go through a battery of considerations, do an impromptu risk assessment and then formulate a plan for how to recover the dropped item. You just don't consider how handy bending is until you lose the ability to do so.


I didn't know it at first, but what I was dealing with was two herniated discs and mild spinal stenosis. For weeks I just thought it was back pain and if I rested for a bit it would get better. In the meantime, living with it was horrible. On the first day I walked into my apartment and accidentally dropped my keys on the floor. I took a deep breath and just stared at them. I stared at the floor the way you would stare down the Grand Canyon if you had just dropped your cell phone and were working up the courage to rappel down and retrieve it. It's so far down. I'm going to hurt myself. I may not make it back up. What am I going to do? Can I live without my keys? Can I just leave them on my floor forever and have someone make a new set for me? Perhaps I should just make dozens of sets of keys and when I drop one I can leave it behind as collateral damage - leaving the world littered with sets of keys. That seems like a reasonable solution. Anything sounds better than bending over.

Of course, I did not make a dozen sets of keys - I would need the original key to cut the duplicates. I had to slowly bend my knees with my back remaining upright and feel around on the floor to pick them up and hang them on the nail. It was a laborious task. It didn't stop with keys, either. I started to wonder if I've always been a klutz and never realized it. Every day I would drop something. The worst was when someone else dropped something by my feet. The polite thing to do would be to pick it up and retrieve it for them. Sorry pal, you are on your own. If someone dropped something on the Metro and it slid below my seat, I would just kick it back to the person. I would try to explain that my back is screwed up and I can't bend over. But the damage was done. It's really not polite to kick something at a person after they drop it. Especially when you're as uncoordinated as I am, and the item would likely get kicked past them, or somewhere within a 3-foot radius of their location. Precision is not one of my talents. It sucks when it's painful to be polite. It was not completely debilitating. I could still go to work, I just had to get up from my desk and walk every couple of hours so I didn't get sore.


One day, after a long day at work, I came home to find that a delivery person had slid a menu underneath the doorway of every apartment in my hallway. What the hell kind of masochist would do something like that? That's just great. What am I going to do now? How am I going to get this off the floor? I am going to have a pizza menu on my floor for all of eternity. What was that delivery person thinking? It was as if someone had vandalized my apartment and I had to figure out how to fix it. Cruel, cruel delivery driver.

The pizza menu stayed on my floor for a couple of days. I finally went through the process of getting x-rays and an MRI on my spine to determine what was causing the pain and that's when I learned of the spinal stenosis. The orthopaedic surgeon showed me the MRI results and pointed to a white line leading from my spine to my right leg. "Do you see the white lines? Those are nerves. Now look on your left side. Do you see how that nerve just stops?" It was creepy to see what's going on inside my body, but it answered a lot of questions. The herniated disc was bulging right into the nerves and cutting them off. Along with the back pain being on my left side, I also had been feeling like my foot was asleep. I often untied my shoelaces and loosened them because my foot hurt, and I thought I had just pulled the laces too tight and cut off my circulation. It turns out that it was not a circulation problem, but my nerves were affected by the back problems. At times it feels like I am walking on something underneath my toes. I must have taken my shoes off and straightened my sock a dozen times because I thought it was my sock bunching up below my toes. But my socks were never bunched. I was feeling something that was not there. I guess that is how the jumbled nerves manifested themselves. It felt very uncomfortable, but not painful like the back pain. The back pain was the worst.


One thing that was very hard for me when dealing with back pain, was that it was all internal. I didn't have a cast on my leg or a brace around my neck that clued people in on my delicate state. If someone didn't know me, they would think I'm an able-bodied young woman in my twenties. Looks can be deceiving. What looks like a 25-year old body on the outside, feels to me like it's 75-years old. I take public transportation everywhere and I struggle with finding a seat during rush hours. I have started waiting until later and taking the train when it is not as packed. When I get to work, I now take the elevator to the second floor instead of the stairs. It makes me very self conscious because I'm sure it just appears to other people as if I'm lazy. Some friends have recommended carrying a cane or wearing a neck brace, just to make it easier to find a seat on the Metro and on the bus. I can't bring myself to ask someone to give up their seat. How do I know they are not suffering from some internal injury as well? Who am I to pick and choose who should give up their seat for my ailing back? I never do. I just suck it up and go on and it seems to get a little better every day. If I have learned one thing from this experience, it is that you can't always tell when someone who comes across as rude or lazy is actually just dealing with pain in the best way that they can. If I have learned two things, it is that bending is awesome and is not to be taken for granted.

19th Century filmmaking meets 3D magic

Last night I attended a screening of a rare PG-rated Martin Scorsese film that did not include Leonardo DiCaprio. I love Scorsese's films, but Hugo is undeniably a kid’s movie and this is not my preferred genre. It should come as no surprise that my favorite character in the film was played by Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen.

While I do prefer a film that is geared toward adults (but to clarify, not the “adult film” genre) there are elements of Hugo that I genuinely appreciate. I love old films, and when I first saw the poster for Hugo, I recognized the resemblance to the iconic scene with Harold Lloyd from the 1923 silent film Safety Last!


What I did not realize was that this film has more than simply a subtle tip of the hat to a silent film, but it is a bit of an homage to the early filmmakers. I was delighted to see brief images of various films ranging from the late 19th century through the time that the film takes place – in 1930s Paris.

The story centers around two children who meet in a train station in Paris. Hugo, an orphan who lives life in constant fear of a relentless Station Manager, and Isabelle, who lives comfortably but her only knowledge of adventure is informed by what she reads in her library books. What follows is a fantastic adventure as the children gather clues in search of more information about Hugo’s father and Isabelle’s godparents.

Their adventure leads them to the world of movies where they learn more about the wondrous world of cinematic techniques from pre-WWI filmmaking through the contemporaries of the film's setting, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. Did I mention that this entire homage to early films is done entirely and beautifully in 3D?

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Hugo's brief tribute to early films through rose-colored (3D) glasses. The labor that was taken to create special effects in the 19th century and most of the 20th century created an imaginative world that is lost to today’s technology. Hugo reminds us that while the techniques may be obsolete, every generation takes their film pioneers for granted. In a time when reality TV passes for entertainment and 3D effects are now being employed by movies like Jackass to show the audience a high-tech, virtual groin-kick, it is poignant to look back at the painstaking work that filmmakers put into creating and editing their art before the computer age. Perhaps I am just being nostalgic, but I can’t help but think that every new advancement in special effects has only served to lower the overall expectations for the next generation. This movie is a perfectly good example. Visually, this film is stunning to watch. The 3D effects are used beautifully. But, while Martin Scorsese is a brilliant filmmaker and children may love Hugo's story, the film was most effective in reminding me that he is no Georges Méliès. I mean no disrespect with that statement, quite the contrary. This may well have been Mr. Scorsese's intention all along.

Not a film review: Pariah at Lincoln Theatre

Tonight the Lincoln Theatre in DC hosted a screening of the new film Pariah, followed by a Q&A panel discussion with writer/director Dee Rees, producer Nekisa Cooper, and actors Adepero Oduye and Kim Wayans. I was not sure what to expect from the film, but I was very excited to see Kim Wayans in a dramatic role. I have fond childhood memories of watching Hollywood Shuffle and In Living Color with friends when we were not quite sophisticated enough to understand all of the adult humor, but just old enough to love it and repeat catchphrases for years to come. (But I ain't one to gossip, so you didn't hear that from me!) The Wayans are an immensely talented family and Kim's dramatic performance was enough to bring me to the Lincoln Theatre tonight. Yet, there is so much more than Kim's outstanding performance that make this film worthwhile.

In short, the film is about a 17-year old girl (Alike, or "Lee") coming to terms with her lesbian identity, and struggling with the expectations and influence of her family and friends. All of the actors in the film do a spectacular job of bringing very real characters to life on the screen - each battling their own personal challenges.

Pariah is an impressive film. Writer Dee Rees has brought very rich and complex characters to the screen in a relatively short debut film (86 minutes, according to IMDB) I see a lot of movies, and most of them rely on a standard formula. In the first 30 minutes of most films, you can often predict certain elements - you know who is going to fall in love with who, the tragic flaws within the characters begin to develop and you begin to take things for granted on where the plot is going. Pariah constantly kept me guessing. Judging by the title and subject matter of the film, I was repeatedly trying to predict the "gotcha" moment or dramatic climax that was going to happen next, but I was always pleasantly surprised. The flow of the film is such as life. I never knew which direction the story was going to go, just as Lee herself never quite knew how to handle herself in those situations. The interaction between the family was so familiar that there were scenes that had the audience laughing that may not have been intentionally humorous, but something as small as a reaction of a spouse, parent or sibling felt so familiar that the theater filled with murmurs of laughter. It felt like a shared experience because on some level, we have all had the same awkward interactions in our own lives. It is this familiarity that makes the movie feel so real.

In a word, "real" is the best way I can describe the film. It is not just the overall feeling of the film, but in the literal sense as well. During the Q&A discussion after the screening, writer Dee Rees explained that she based the film on her personal experiences. While it is not completely autobiographical, she shared many experiences and struggles of the main character. It portrays the experience of many people in the LGBT community who have struggled with their sexual identity while looking for love and suffering their own family conflict, but it is such a personal glimpse, that it is easy to relate to the characters and what they are going through. Anyone who has felt that they did not fit in and has ever struggled with the expectations of family or friends will likely see a part of themselves in Lee. During the Q&A, an audience member explained that she was of the same generation as the mother (Kim Wayans' character) in the film, and it helped her as a parent to see the other side of the struggle in accepting children for who they are, rather than who they are expected to be. After this comment, Dee Rees' response was so genuine and touching as she explained that is the reaction she had hoped for when working on the film - To reach people and allow them to understand the main character's internal struggle and coming of age, while constantly dealing with the labels that other people have projected onto her.

It is a very impressive film and the filmmakers made it clear that it will have a very limited release beginning in December, so word-of-mouth is very important in encouraging people to see the film. I don't know how persuasive of a case I have made since it is getting late and we all know I am challenged when it comes to film reviews anyway. So what I am saying here is - I encourage you to see the film. More information about Pariah can be found here.