Modern Family, violins, and Patrick Bateman

"He blew his lid... when she tried to contain him..."
-Phil talking about Claire's missing Tupperware lids

Now that I'm lacking my daily dose of "Mad Men," and I realize that I really don't like movies, I've started watching "Modern Family." It had a slightly slow start, but this is another one of those character-driven stories and I have definitely gotten to love the characters at this point (Season 2).

I LOVE Phil Dunphy... I want to marry someone like him. Even though he is such a dork. Though, it certainly doesn't hurt that he has very good hands...

I feel like I know what it is to be a teenager, and I know what I want when I am a little bit older and married. But I don't know what I want right now. So I try to watch shows or movies catered toward the 20-something crowd to see what is "normal," but I can never relate, and I always feel either extremely immature or overly cynical.

And at this point, I don't want to say that I am "over" S&M or spanking, but I am so far away from all that right now. It's not relevant in my life right now.

There's no rhyme or reason to this post.

I miss the days when I played violin and was part of an orchestra. That is probably the nerdiest slice of my past. I hated it way back when but now I miss it... but now I can't play very well. I miss obsessing over notes and watching the same Bruch video over and over. I miss the competition, the leadership, the intensity. Wow, that sounds so nerdy.

Sometimes when I'm feeling particularly stressed out or upset, I like to go online to look up murder videos. Just like what Patrick Bateman said: "What do you do?" "I'm into, well, murders an executions mostly." I like looking at pictures of accidents and murders and suicides and autopsies... well, maybe not like it so much as find them intriguing. I remember only a few years ago, back in high school, I wasn't able to stomach those types of photos. Now I watch them with a coffee in one hand and a muffin in the other.

It's like I am so far removed from the actual tragedy of it that I am almost close to laughing at them... it's so wrong and yet I can't stop. Maybe seeing these things kind of give me a sort of twisted wake-up call... like my life isn't too bad. My family hasn't been chopped up by the Mexican cartel. No one has raped me and put up the video online. I haven't been crushed between two racing cars. Life isn't as bad as that. I never watch videos like this when I'm happy and content.

I remember watching the Luka Magnotta video when it came out and feeling slightly sick about the way he handled the body, and thinking, that is the ugliest side of humanity, the darkest end of the spectrum, the most fucked up that people can become. My depression, my anxiety, my spoiled sense of being, that is nothing compared to how dark life can be. But after watching that, I didn't think to myself, I need to brush my shoulders off. I just thought about how disgusting and untrustworthy people are... so why even try?

Sometimes I am able to see the pure beauty in the world and feel hope for it... and then there is the ugliness that I've witnessed on film and photos, no back story necessary, and I want to give up entirely.

Black and white. Story of my life.

But I want to end on happy note.

Hey, Phil... I feel like I'm crazy and weird. Am I weird?

Thanks, Phil.