Grotto of the Apocalypse?

Growing up, there was a Disney cartoon featuring Goofy hunting down, killing, and cooking a decoy duck. A drumstick has never looked, and subsequently will never taste, as good as it did in that cartoon.

As much as she thought getting married would change things, he continued to introduce her as his "friend."

The third time he changed careers it only took a couple months before he thought, "I'm unhappy here."

Highlander 2.

His little town never had big names come through, so he saved all summer for tickets to hear Michael Crawford. Too bad this Michael Crawford did motivational speaking for agricultural communities to apply for federal monies.

The next morning, the still of the bedroom after a night of fighting and tears, realizing you will make all the mistakes your parents made.

Fifth grade selling Christmas wrap for weeples. Conceptually cute, but what do you do with them?

Years of promises and reassurances that hard work would prevail over an easier courseload only resulted in a pile of single page rejections.

They had decided to move together, but when her job didn't pan out, it became her fault.

The tray of cookies gets passed around the boardroom table. The tension that mounts. Will there be enough? Turns out they're just crumbly, crap cookies.

It took a failed suicide attempt to discover near death experiences feel the same as general anesthesia.

Things That Have Saved Your Life

After Life - a brilliant Japanese movie where people awake in purgatory. They are told they only have a handful of days before they "move on." Once they have moved on, however, they will forget everything of their lives, save a single memory. They must choose that single memory from their lives which they want to relive throughout all eternity.

The English Patient - specifically, the scene without words when the score swells to the forefront and we only see Ralph Fiennes weeping.

English Breakfast tea - served hot, with milk and sugar, preferrably sugar in the raw. Sweet, milky, delicious.

A Good Massage - not a half hearted affair done sitting in front of a TV somewhere, but a real massage. A dimly lit room, Enya or the sounds of tropical birds somewhere, oils, quiet, and elbows. Lots and lots of elbows right down into the organs.

Blackbird/I Will by The Swingle Singers - despite this being a medley of sorts, it has an airy quality that soothes the soul. It all comes to a head by "For the things you do endear you to me..."

Kiwi! - It always helps to be reminded that the most hopeless and seemingly meaningless of tasks can have a much larger, much more glorious purpose. And sometimes that purpose is simply to bring a moment's peace before a total failure.

Raymond Carver - Despite whatever happens, revisiting Mr. Carver can bring it all into perspective - disappointment, mediocrity, loneliness, small successes.

Happiness - What a fantastic movie. No mood is ever so dark that this film cannot raise you up.

What We Learn

When she was five her parents discouraged her from dressing as a princess for Halloween, and that was when she learned she was ugly.

After the honeymoon, they moved into their new home together. He marveled at how little junk mail comes to a new address, and he wondered why he hadn’t moved sooner just for this benefit. It wasn’t until years later when he realized she skimmed the mail before him, never getting over that time he signed them up for a wine club which cost them hundreds of dollars for not reading the fine print.

She didn’t love him anymore, that much was certain. When his mother died, she held him and ran her hands through his hair. But she kept eating that sandwich.

At the salad bar, her mother filled her plate with lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, sprouts, carefully avoiding the beets. “I don’t like beets,” the child realized.

He tried out for the basketball team and came home to tell his father he hadn’t made the cut. His father nodded knowingly. “You choke under pressure.”

Among their group of friends, she had always considered herself to be one of the cooler, hipper ones. She knew of bands before they became big. She did daring things with her clothes years before they became trendy. But no one asked her advice when it came time to pick outfits for their senior trip.

And then one day, in a fit of rage, he admitted he had only married her out of fear of growing old alone. Yet, without tears, she simply nodded.

Here's to the complications of living!