Some Things Never Change
In which I am in agreement with my 14-year-old self.
I’m having an astonishingly bad week so far and it’s only Tuesday. For one thing, it’s a bad time to be in research administration. Things are bad. The rest of what’s going on with me is not stuff I’m ready to talk about on a public forum, so instead you get another ridiculous diary entry, this one related to my totally understandable love affair with River Phoenix. I know I’m not the only one:
December 23, 1986
Sometimes I really wonder what’s going to become of me. I fall in love with actors when I’m really only in love with the characters that they played. Chances are that they’re not anything like the character. Chris Chambers1 is someone that I’d really have liked to know. So, I fall for River Phoenix assuming that he’ll be like Chris. Hoping that something on that screen if only a little really existed. Deep, man. Really deep. Sincerely.
December 29th, 1986 Cleveland Ohio2
Saw Mosquito Coast. Beautiful. River Phoenix was beautiful. Very deep. You have to be one of US to understand it. The adults don’t. I’m sure that some adults do, though, or the movie wouldn’t have been made, much less the book written. They don’t know. They are so very ignorant to not see the beauty and depth of it. He was not so very crazy in his beliefs. River was so good and so beautiful even when he was filthy and his hair was standing on end. I would do anything to work with him3, to have him hold me in his arms. Such strong arms. I truly love him as an actor. I wish I knew him so that I could love him as himself. Martha Plimpton is very lucky4. Humans have such little faith in themselves. I will not lead a boring life and I might write a letter to River5.
I don’t like this place I want to go home and see my friends. Christmas is over. Life can be such a boring reality.
The character River Phoenix played in Stand By Me, a movie I with which I was obsessed.
We were visiting friends of my mother over the holiday.
I was not, nor have I ever been, a professional actor.
Fully agree with this sentiment.
I did not.
The adults will never understand US!
It is indeed a bad time to be in research administration. Every day, I'm showing up and trying to do my best but not really knowing what that looks like.