The Bear – Sara Mazariegos

Independence Day celebrations not on Independence Day. I have a pet peeve about holidays: I dislike when they’re celebrated not on their respective date. I get that Independence Day is on a Saturday this year, so we get Friday off from work. That makes sense. It can’t be given off if it’s a Saturday. Fine. Thanks. However, the 4th of July is on the 4th of July so celebrating it on the 3rd makes no sense. Also, wouldn’t you rather celebrate on a Saturday, well-rested after having the previous day off? It’s the same with Halloween. It always bothers me when Halloween is on a Saturday and people choose to celebrate it on a Friday instead, or it’s on Sunday so people celebrate it on Saturday. It’s so baffling to me. Celebrate holidays on their actual days!

That being said, we’re not watching the thing in D.C. on the 4th of July. We’re watching the pre-recorded PBS Capitol Fourth show that has to happen on the 3rd because we live in a dystopia. And then of course we’ll watch the World Cup game, too, because that will be a jolly good time. France might cream Paraguay, but this has been an unusual World Cup, so anything could happen. It’s been amazing.

Streaming shows schedule. To keep up with shows and not binge them, Luis and I have scheduled what we’re currently watching on our calendar, and it struck me that it’s not much different from the television schedules of yore. Except there are no commercials and we can switch around the order of things if we want to. For a long time, we did what a lot of people do: we watched shows we like all the way through, watching them every day. I think it’s better to space them out and watch each show weekly, especially because we can then savor them. We still binge a few shows, mainly true crime shows because I just wanna know what happened!!, but for the most part we stick to our schedule to give each show its allotted attention.

For example, it’s been fun having “Bear Thursday” to look forward to each week. …It’s not what it sounds like.

World Cup feelings are taking over. We were planning to see Supergirl last weekend, but then we just couldn’t bring ourselves to. It got bad reviews, the trailer wasn’t very inspiring or original, and it seemed like Krypto isn’t in it much, and he’s the main reason I care, so… We went and had a nice lunch and watched movies at home this weekend instead, along with many more World Cup games. It’s been nice to catch as many games as we can in the evenings and on the weekends, even though they can be random teams we haven’t really been following. The game with Paraguay vs. Germany? WHAT. And then Canada and South Africa on Sunday was crazy. And then Netherlands vs. Morocco? Oh. My. God.

My childhood crush reborn. We watched Liar Liar on Sunday as well, because Luis hadn’t seen it before. I was a little worried it wouldn’t hold up, because sometimes movies from the 90s can be pretty icky, but it is still good. Jim Carrey is so talented. I saw that movie in the theater for my 10th birthday, with a group of my friends. A few of my friends’ parents wouldn’t let them go see it with me because it’s a PG-13 movie, and I remember thinking they were silly and not fun. Now as an adult, I can see the issues. I still think they should’ve been allowed to come, but it makes more sense to me now. A lot of the sexual innuendo went over our heads when we were kids, though. I mainly remembered him beating himself up in a bathroom to try to get out of his court case, but then he can’t lie to the judge and say it’ll prevent him from working the case, so he badly beat himself up for no reason. 🥲

I want to rewatch a lot of the Jim Carrey movies I loved as a kid now. I know there are lots of classic movies I still need to see, but sometimes rewatching old favorites is just nice.

Writing my next novel starting next week! I’ve been stressed out by the looming Metro construction and having to get up earlier to take an alternate route and stuff, but I am genuinely looking forward to starting to write my next novel next week. I hope my brain won’t be too distracted by the stress and I can take the writing time as a time to relax and have fun. That’s my goal anyway.

I worry so much about not having enough time. The commute home is going to potentially take longer, so I’m fretting. I look at our calendar and I think we’re not going to be able to do much together in the evenings, and it makes me sad. We’re probably (hopefully) only going to lose maybe 30 minutes per day. But that does add up. I’m glad this won’t last longer than a few months. I’m also curious to see if I really will be going to bed at 11pm each night. I’ve never been a fan of going to bed early.

But, in a way, being worried about running out of time fits in perfectly with my novel. Hopefully someday I’ll be able to share it with you so you can see for yourself.

I’m picky about biopics. I think I’ve discussed them before. When the Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Mr. Rogers ones came out I was irritated because, nearly right before them, brilliant documentaries came out on the subjects. We saw the documentaries and loved them. We saw the RBG biopic and that was all right but not as good, and we didn’t bother with the Mr. Rogers one because the documentary was perfect. More recently, we saw the movie about Bob Dylan going electric and it was… all right. And now there’s a Bruce Springsteen biopic starring Jeremy Allen White and I just can’t bring myself to care.

We did see Blue Moon about Lorenz Hart last weekend. That was really good. The difference there, I think, is that it was made like a play and didn’t tell his story as much as it showed one major point in his life. He’s also not as well-known to people today as The freaking Boss. It was quiet and subtle, and required prior knowledge about musicals and Broadway in the 40s. It’s probably not doing too well. But I’m tired of seeing the origin story of anyone who’s ever been famous. Tired of even seeing them being made.

I’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately, especially when it comes to people I admire or people in my life who are getting older, and how it makes me feel old in ways that I otherwise might not. It’s strange, I guess; I obviously don’t feel twenty anymore or anything, but I especially feel the passage of time when I see famous people I liked growing up and how they’ve gotten older. Like Tina Fey being in her 50s. That feels insane to me. I’m very glad she’s still around and getting older, of course, because the opposite would be way worse. But honestly… I don’t think people talk about it enough: getting older is scary. It’s like some kind of magic trick that happens in slow motion that no one is controlling, and when you notice it’s happening it’s unsettling and doesn’t feel real.

I was thinking about all the countries I want to visit, and how we often don’t have the time off to go places. And it makes me feel sad and concerned because we shouldn’t wait until we’re 80 to travel. We should go while we’re young enough for walking to not be a problem and we don’t feel too tired to do all the things. I want to visit Amsterdam, Argentina, Berlin, New Zealand (even thinking about that flight makes me feel anxious,) Tokyo, Venice, and I’d love to go back to Barcelona and London since they’re both so great. Domestic vacations are fun, especially Disney, but there is a part of me, in the back of my brain, that thinks, “You should travel to those other countries while you still have a chance.”

I have wanderlust. Somebody explain to my and Luis’s employers that I want to travel so they will give us more days off. Wah.

I’m looking forward to Halloween on Friday and our escape room party on Saturday. It’s not in October, but Saturday is Dia de los Muertos, so it still counts as spooky time. 💀 We’ve gone all out for our escape room this year. It helps that we already own a lot of the stuff and it relies on a lot of lore from the attraction we love so much. I’m excited to see how it all plays out and see how our friends react. They loved our Riddler one last year.

There are understandably a great many shows that people like that are good and become popular. But oh my god. I love The Bear. All the episodes, even the ones that are a half-hour, are like little films. The crazy Christmas episode, “Fishes”… I’m still thinking about it. I was worried when we started watching the show that it was overhyped. That also happens often, but this show is very very good. Can’t recommend it enough, though it is frantic and sad, so you have to go into it knowing it’s not really a comedy. It’s a Drama with some humor in it.

That doesn’t mean I’m rushing out to see the Bruce Springsteen movie just because I like the guy who plays Carmy, though. I like Carmy specifically. I’m not watching everything he ever makes.

Last-Week-of-Not-Writing Writing update: the time off from working on a story has been a good thought cleanse. When I see on the calendar that I’m going to start reading through and editing my It’s A Wonderful Life novel next week, I feel excited and ready to check it out. I have an organized plan, in theory. I’m going to start with a read-through, no note-taking allowed. Then I will go in and make notes of changes, make actual line edits and minor tweaks. THEN I will go in with the bigger rewriting and altering.

Hopefully, by the end of February, I’ll have a fresh new draft I can let people read. And maybe even send to agents.

Here’s hoping,

Tag: The Bear

I’m having such a good time; I’m having a ball.

I’ve heard that it’s quite acceptable and surprisingly fun.