diana writes:

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the past, and also about the future. For most of this year I’ve been static, motionless, not knowing my next step. I decided that I needed a change of scenery to clear my head and refocus. What better time and place to turn over a new leaf than the East Coast in autumn with the vibrant changing of seasons.

A few days ago while catching up with a dear friend, I learned that a classmate of ours from high school recently passed away. This news left me stunned. This was someone my age, someone that I knew. We’d lost touch after graduation, but we’d been friendly since our freshman year when we worked together on the school newspaper.

We once wrote an article together and shared a byline.

I was passionate about basketball but didn’t know the game as well as he did. Although I’d been going to high school games with my dad since I was four, I never played hoops myself aside from the occasional game of H-O-R-S-E in the driveway. He was on the freshman team so he was connected, in the know. The thought of interviewing the players and coaches was intimidating at first; they were local celebrities. I was shy and soft-spoken. It was journalism that brought me out of my shell and gave me an identity, a voice. With our steno notebooks in hand, the two of us broke into sports reporting by getting quotes from each player on the team then crafting the article together after school. Of all my memories of him, that is my favorite. He was someone who helped me develop the self-confidence I needed to become a journalist.

All week I’ve been trying to wrap my brain around it, to reconcile the image I have of him as a sharp, witty, and charismatic teenager who always had ruddy cheeks and a wide smile, with the knowledge that he is gone. I never would have imagined that he would be the one member of our graduating class who wouldn’t live to see the 10-year reunion. His passing leaves me immeasurably saddened. I have nothing but fond memories of him.

Tonight I held my cousin’s newborn son in my arms. He still has that intoxicating new baby smell. He was wearing blue footed pajamas and tiny mittens on his hands to stop from scratching his face. His eyes looked around the room with wonder. I remind myself to keep looking at the world that way.

I have to admit that I was late to the party on the whole Netflix thing. I’d held out for years, arguing that I actually enjoyed physically driving to the nearest Blockbuster video store and scanning the walls lined with new releases. I wasn’t keen on waiting for someone in a warehouse somewhere to ship me a DVD via snail mail, but I was totally ignorant to the beauty of the “Instant Queue.” You mean I can stream hundreds of movies and TV shows directly to my laptop and watch them right now – and I don’t even need to fix my hair, put on makeup, or even pants? Yahtzee! I wish I’d known about this sooner.

My 83-year-old grandmother even uses Netflix now. Her upstairs neighbor has a subscription that several ladies in her complex utilize. They’ve formed a little social club that regularly meets to watch “the Netflix.” I love this.

Since joining Netflix 6 months ago, I’ve spent $49.35 on the service ($8.99/month, $9.87 including tax after my 1-month free trial membership) and in that time I’ve watched 110 films. (For tallying purposes, 1 season of a TV series = 1 film.) That’s an average of $0.45 apiece per stream or disc. I couldn’t rent 2 DVDs a month at Blockbuster for $9.87.

Netflix also has a much wider selection than Blockbuster. I’ve recently watched 10 Foreign Language films (in French, Spanish and Hindi,) 14 Documentaries, 3 TV series, 5 comedy specials, many Indies, classics, and a few action flicks thrown in for good measure.

According to Netflix, the average member has rated about 200 movies on the site. I’ve rated 1233. (Ok, so that’s slightly above the average, but give me a break, I was a film major in college and have been working in the entertainment industry for the past 5 years. When I consume media I get to call it research!)

And all my research has paid off for you my friends. For your viewing pleasure I’ve compiled a list of the best films I’ve Netflixed so far:

My Top 10 Netflix Picks

Robert Indiana’s LOVE Sculpture in Love Park (JFK Plaza,) Philadelphia

There is only one novel that I’ve ever read more than once, that I’ve returned to again and again. When I was 12 years old, my mother gave me her yellowed copy of LOVE STORY, a novel by Erich Segal published when she was a teenager. Mother was cleaning out the garage and saved the paperback from the yard sale pile, along with her collection of vinyl records including classic albums by Simon & Garfunkel, Carly Simon and Carole King, which she thought I would enjoy. I was in love from the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence:

     What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?

     That she was beautiful. And brilliant. That she loved Mozart and Bach. And the Beatles. And me. Once, when she specifically lumped me with those musical types, I asked her what the order was, and she replied, smiling, “Alphabetical.” At the time I smiled too. But now I sit and wonder whether she was listing me by my first name –in which case I would trail Mozart –or by my last name, in which case I would edge in there between Bach and the Beatles. Either way I don’t come first, which for some stupid reason bothers the hell out of me, having grown up with the notion that I always had to be number one.

My well-worn copy of Love Story, published in 1970, is now 40 years old.

I vividly remember running my finger over the text, line by line, mouthing the words silently to myself at my desk in my 6^th Grade Language Arts classroom during SSR (Sustained Silent Reading.) We were allowed to read whatever we wanted and I was sure the other kids weren’t reading books with curse words and sex in them.  I was besotted with the language Segal used, the casual tone of his narrator’s voice. Oliver Barrett IV, a Harvard hockey jock (All-Ivy First Team,) career aim: Law, falls for Jennifer Cavilleri a “bespectacled mouse type,” a brain who works at the Radcliffe Library and plays piano with The Bach Society. She calls him Preppie, he calls her a snotty Radcliffe bitch, they flirt by batting intellectual insults and coy remarks back and forth. It’s not long before Oliver’s roommate is crashing on friends’ couches after coming home to find a tie hanging on the doorknob.

I read Love Story every few years. Although I haven’t kept an official count, I know I’ve read it eight or nine times now, including once more today. I’ve also seen the film starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw at least as many times, and I’m always sobbing by the end. I enjoy a good cry while reading books or watching movies. That’s one of the ways I know they’re good, if they can still get me when I already know the ending.

In January I took a creative writing course at UCLA Extension. One week we discussed favorite books. I admitted that I’m partial to non-fiction, I’ve read mostly memoirs and autobiographies, but if I had to single out one book as my favorite, it would be Love Story. One of my classmates, Deborah, laughed before telling me that she not only knew Erich Segal — but that Jenny was actually based on her sister, Janet.

She noted an article which ran in the New York Times in 1997 discussing Jenny’s true identity: “Liberties; Is Janet Jenny?”

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/12/17/opinion/liberties-is-janet-jenny.html

And another which appeared in People Magazine in 1998. 

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0„20124278,00.html

Deborah’s sister, Janet Sussman Gartner, did not die at 25 like Jenny; she’d simply spurned the advances of her old high school classmate, Erich Segal, prompting him years later to write a love story using her as his muse.

“Imagine there’s no Heaven / It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us only sky / Imagine all the people / Living for today // Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace // You may say that I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the world will be as one // Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger / A brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world // You may say that I’m a dreamer / But I’m not the only one / I hope someday you’ll join us / And the world will live as one”

– John Lennon, Imagine

I was 13 years old when I discovered The Beatles. I wasn’t alive for the British Invasion back in 1964 when they first rocked The Ed Sullivan Show. I experienced the new wave of Beatlemania in 1995 when they released The Beatles Anthology, a documentary series chronicling the history of the band’s epic contribution to music and their lasting influence on pop culture. I logged countless hours listening to The Beatles, watching A Hard Day’s Night, Help, and every televised interview and VH1 special I could get my hands on at a time when YouTube didn’t even exist.

The Beatles Anthology album artwork by Klaus Voormann

I escaped into a world ruled by John, Paul, George and Ringo, developing a special affinity for John. I was born a year and a half after his death but something about John Lennon’s creative genius resonated with me more than the other Beatles. John was a musician, but also a poet and an artist. I wanted to be just like him. I wore glasses and desperately wanted a pair of the wire-rimmed circular Windsor frames that he made so popular in the 60’s. I also begged my mother to drive me all over town looking for a black hat like the one John wore in A Hard Day’s Night.

John with a copy of his book, In His Own Write (wearing the hat that I wanted but could never find!)

I read John’s books and many of the biographies written about him.  I memorized all the important dates – John Lennon’s birthday (9 October 1940,) the date he died (8 December 1980,) and the date The Beatles performed All You Need Is Love via live worldwide telecast (25 June 1967.) In 8^th Grade I wrote a story based on the lyrics of A Day In The Life, a song John was inspired to write after reading the newspaper.  

While I was living in London after college in 2005, I made the trip north to Liverpool to visit the birthplace of The Beatles. I rode on a Magical Mystery Tour bus that stopped along Penny Lane and the gateway to Strawberry Fields. I visited The Beatles Story Exhibition at the Albert Dock, a museum that recreated iconic locales such as the interior of the Yellow Submarine and the white room at Tittenhurst Park where John recorded Imagine, my favorite song of all time.

I also visited John’s childhood home, Mendips, where he lived with his Aunt Mimi and Uncle George from 1945-1963. I walked through the same door as John Lennon, stood in his kitchen, his living room, his bedroom. I felt something electric just being in the physical space he once occupied. It felt as if I’d stepped back in time. It was a very powerful experience and is now a cherished memory.

Mendips - John Lennon’s childhood home in Woolton, Liverpool

I remember once as a teenager waking up from a nightmare, my heart racing, tears inexplicably running down my face. It was early morning and still dark outside. Frightened and alone in my bedroom, I listened to Strawberry Fields Forever and let the lyrics wash over me. Instantly I felt better.

“Let me take you down / ‘Cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields / Nothing is real / And nothing to get hung about / Strawberry Fields Forever // Living is easy with eyes closed / Misunderstanding all you see / It’s getting hard to be someone / But it all works out / It doesn’t matter much to me” – Strawberry Fields Forever  

The gate is all that remains of Strawberry Fields