Middletown

The AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring is currently holding, among other events, a Northern Ireland film festival, and yesterday I saw a movie called Middletown. It's the story of a fanatic preacher who comes back to his desolate hometown to rid it of perceived "sin," only to alienate his family, who owns the local pub, in the process. The scariest thing about this preacher, and many other "men of God," is the sense of entitlement he feels, because as a child, the local preacher told him he was "chosen by God" to carry out divine purpose on earth. Even as his family's pub is going under, due in part to his sermons, he doesn't reach out to them, but instead continues his preaching against sin, and when he decides to rid his church home of "decadent" material wealth, he burns it instead of giving it to the many needy citizens of the town, including his brother, whose wife is pregant, and lives in a cramped trailer. Another startling element in the preacher's character is how unhappy he is. He never seems to get any joy out of what he does and isolates himself from the community except on Sundays, but is blindly in the service of an invisible boss. Fanatics who live their life solely for the purpose of buying a spot in heaven after death are rarely happy, and how could they be when they've devoted their present life to the afterlife.
On the personal front, I went out for some pre-birthday partying this past weekend, and had a great time, even though I ran into my two asshole exes. I was pleased with myself at how quickly I forgot them. Also, there's another potential guy in my life, who I met at Bound two weeks ago and saw again when he picked me up at EN last Saturday. Who knows how this one will turn out, and even when a guy says he likes me, from my experience, that's no guarantee that he won't screw me over somewhere down the line. He said he'd be at Bound this Friday for my birthday, and if he doesn't show up, I'll still have my friends to celebrate with me. I'm looking forward to this weekend, and just have to get through the work week.