Aaron and I were puttering around on the internet this morning over coffee. He is on his way to work soon, feeling better from his gall-bladder attack. I seem to have picked up a terrible cold when we were in the ER for his abdominal pain on Sunday, so I am immersing myself in the world of blankets and tea and coffee and cats and warm things and laundry avoidance and not going to work so I don't give this 102 fever to anyone but myself. And we were on the internet and looking at things together and I noticed that The Giver, which is a Lois Lowry book that I enjoy, has been turned into a movie and is either coming out soon or is out in the theaters this weekend or last weekend or some such. And I have a confession.
I don't like movies. Specifically, I don't like going to the movies.
In general, if you've turned a book into a movie, I don't care. I don't want to see it, I've read the book and I've created the visuals in my heads. I don't like plot contrivances that fit the story into two hours, typically. I don't like sitting through something and not interacting with it. I don't like being immersed in one thing for that long. I fall asleep, typically, in a movie theater because I cannot be occupied with just one thing for two hours without falling asleep. It's just not how my brain is wired.
I like some movies fine. I loved going to Harry Potter movies, mostly because they were experienced with my girls - in general, I like taking the girls to movies I know they're going to love, and I watch them instead of the movie for much of it, and it's awesome.
Television shows are fine. They're shorter - they're immersive, and most importantly, they have commercial breaks or can be paused. We watch Doctor Who as a family and invite friends over and turn off all the lights and curl up on the couch and get lost in the world of being time travelers. But we chat about it! During the commercial breaks, we chatter on. I can ask what people think's going to happen, we can relate things to what we experience. We can go make popcorn or get a drink and not miss anything. If my brain is wandering, I can quietly side-occupy it. I can crochet or I can play with clay or I can read a book while watching the show and still get just as much out of it, experience wise.
Do you have the same problem? Does your brain refuse to settle on one thing, and if you force it to, does it rebel like a spoiled child and throw up its fists and say no! No I don't WANNA watch a movie I want to look up every actor in the film to see if I've seen them in other things and try to remember why I know that face and also I would like to write a poem because that line was really cool and...
Or is it just me?
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