toy story, naturally.

first, observe the title of this blog.

second, my friend sarah wrote a blog about toy story, and i feel the need to have my own take on this movie series as well.

thirdly, it will not be just like sarahs, but it may get close at some points.

and finally, there is no way to do this movie justice, but here it goes:

everyone loves it when you start with some statistics. i learned that one at college orientation after a few hours. so i guess i can do that. today is the 27th, 9 days after its release in the USA. To date, the movie has grossed $226.6 million, and its only going up. This being its second weekend in the box office, it has generated $59 million in ticket sales. most movies can't do that opening weekend. it did nearly double on its own opening weekend, while competing with seven other movies with the same release date. it is now competing with grown ups, which i first started seeing ads for at least 5 months ago, and it still holds the number one spot in the box office. it still has 16 countries that it hasn't been released in, including japan, the UK, and many others that it will surely soar in. the real critics at rottentomatoes.com holds toy story 3 at a 100%, which is rare, but even more so is the fact that it was almost the first trilogy - if it weren't for 3 idiots - to have 100% ratings across the board from all the critics. apparently, 3 out of 195 movie critics didn't like it, but that still leaves it at a 98% approval. i can deal with that i suppose.

why do i share all of this? just to preface my heartfelt rant with something that actually backs up my unprofessional opinion that this is certainly the best animated movie ever created, if not just simply the best movie to come across a movie screen. its not just me that loves this movie, and i'm not the only person to go see it.

maybe i'm biased. again, look at the title of the blog. falling with style was my life story for a long time, because shortly after seeing this movie, at the ripe age of almost-four, i began learning how to climb trees and get on my roof. (my mother was thrilled). it became my motto, because buzz was my hero. like many people of my age are saying, i grew up with andy. we were the same age in the beginning, we were the same age at the end, and we both love all those toys that lived on 234 Elm street.

my dad and i saw toy story 3 together, him for the first time, me for the second. afterward, we were discussing it, talking about why i got so much more emotional than him during the movie, and he said something like "so i guess you kinda grew up with toy story". I agreed, naturally, but then he pointed out a disturbing fact... "well you sure didn't keep your toys. they all got ruined and trashed." there was no doubting it, so instead i figured my toys never talked to me, and so i loved the toys on the screen much more than my own. so yes, i cried during the movie. that last 15 minutes when we're saying bye to andy and to the toys and when andy sees woody in the box and gets caught up and when they're all playing together in the yard just like old times..... yeah, it got to me. because thats me. those are my toys.

better yet, throw into the mix that i'm too leaving for college, and in exactly 50 days. its close now. when andy's mom walks into andy's empty room and just gasps at the reality of it all of a sudden... thats me. this that i'm sitting in will hardly be my own room in 50 days. that's going to be my mom sitting and gasping at my sudden lack of occupation of the house.

but what i really want to say is, thank you, pixar, for that ending. it was perfect. after a lifetime of toy story, i know and love those toys just as much as andy himself, if not more, and was happy to see them go out with style as andy left them with the perfect little bonnie (who my daughter very well may be named after, should i have one). i am a child on the inside, and frequently on the outside, as many people that know me have noticed, and loved seeing a beautiful, happy ending come through the sadness. that scene with andy and bonnie and the gang was nearly nostalgic, because the last time andy played with those toys was when i played with my own. watching that scene made that inner child burst out and take over, and i realized in that instant that i would always love those toys and i would always have that inner child that can't wait to do it all over when i have kids of my own.


let us observe the graph. now, to clear up any doubt, THIS IS ACCURATE. for me anyway. i can't wait to have the chance for it to be totally socially acceptable to have play time again. andy had his chance right before college, and i got to have that chance with him right there in my theater seat, and it made me so very happy.

if you didn't cry during toy story, i've been saying you have no soul. but i guess i should rework that blanket statement a little bit. i'm much more emotionally attached to every aspect of toy story 3, from my own childhood toys to leaving for college. i cried. both times i've seen it. but i have such a large portion of my life invested in the characters and lives of this movie that every scene just hit so close to my heart that i couldn't help it. if you're just watching it, disconnected and unable to relate, then i can understand that you wouldn't get all choked up like all of us kids that truly grew up alongside andy and the gang.

whether you like it or not, andy is off to college. his toys are safe. the 3 movie deal that started 15 years ago has been fulfilled and toy story debuts are very possibly a thing of the past. all good things do come to an end eventually, and this movie hit right at home when it made me realize my childhood is no exception.

thanks disney, pixar, John Lasseter, and Lee Unkrich for an awesome trilogy. and thank you woody, buzz, rex, mr. and mrs. potato head, the round up gang, slinky, and hamm, along with all the other toys throughout the years for an awesome childhood and for being the best friends a kid can have.

the graduation blog entry. you knew it was coming.

wow, graduation weekend. when did this come upon us? it seems like we've been leading up to this point in our lives for years and years, but now it seems like it came in an instant. time is a funny thing. it goes by so slowly, but is gone so fast. i'd love to think of some awesome philosophical analogy or something, but i got nothing. its too hard to explain how i see and interact with time, so i'll leave it alone in favor of not sounding like a babbling idiot.

this summer coming up is going to be amazing. maybe i'm an optimist, but i dont see how it cant be awesome when THERE IS NO BAND. sorry for any younglings that read this, if there are any, who happen to be in band... yeah. sucks for you guys. its an awesome feeling to hear about all the initiations going on, graduation band, freshman camp next week, talks of fourth of july parade, and then put all that with your complete and total non-association with it all as a band student, and its like taking a 30 pound weight out of your backpack. i could go skip or something. uh, no homo? but yeah, no band. wow. an unfamiliar concept. on a similar note (lol), it'd be great if i knew the school song for graduation so i could sing along. stupid band. i'll hum it.

but yeah, gonna be an awesome summer. i'm definitely making new friends..... like, the weekend of graduation. its rather sad, that i'm just now making some awesome friends that are going away in a few months. like, 2. or 3 tops. it would have been awesome to be doing this like, at the end of last summer, or even the end of last year. but all the same, i'm glad i'm not going to have a boring summer.

friends are funny that way, don't you think? as we change and grow, our friends do the same. its not very often you find friends that have been best friends since kindergarten and are still best friends now that we're graduating. people just... change. friend groups changed when we went to middle school, and drastically changed when high school came along. more people, more diversity, more groups, more change. now we're going off to college. its the opposite now. before it was ok, because we were joining with other schools. no one had to say goodbye. now we're done mixing with others, and instead all heading separate ways. this is a completely new concept. sure, there's facebook. sure, we'll come back for homecoming - well, some of us - or during fall break or at christmas. we'll see each other at tom thumb when mom sends us up to get some eggnog or whatever, we'll say hi, maybe even have a 5 minute conversation... but our real friends will change.

sorry if i'm killing this real friends thing in my blog, but its a big deal to me. we're going to college. if you're not coming with me, we won't stay awesomely cool and perfect friends. sorry. we can stay friends, but it wont be easy and we wont be besties. we're heading different directions, and for the first time, i mean it totally literally as well as figuratively. plus, when we get to college, we're going to make friends that didn't go to coppell. crazy concept, huh? my life is going to fill up fast. new school, new friends, new schedule. its a lot to take in, and it isn't going to slow down.

this right now will be the past. what is now, wont be then. i hope i stay friends with the people i am friends with now, but i can't promise anything. all of this "you'd better visit" or "i'm gonna come see you!" stuff... well of course we say that now... we dont have anyone else to be with. but as soon as life goes from point A to point B, we'll find that Skype is our new best friend and thats really all the time we can make for our old high school buddies. thats all we're going to be to each other, to be blunt and realistic. old high school buddies. friends from back in my hometown. friends from my last life. it won't be the here and now, and our relationship will change accordingly.

does this mean i hate you? no.
does this mean i dont care about you or your feelings? no.
it means life is changing, time is unstoppable, and the inevitable is just that. we cant stop all this from happening. i hope it doesnt destroy what we have, but it will in part, and there's no way to stop it.

the bright side? there's a bright side? oh yes, there is. we still have right now. we still have this summer. it's going to be awesome, and i don't want the looming move-in date that is constantly hanging over the summer to be a downer. don't worry about what's going to happen to our friendship in 3 months. lets be friends now, just like always, and end on a good note. a good memory to end this stage of our life will mean the world to me and will stay in my mind a long time. the same goes for bad last impressions. if we get in a huge fight right before we go to college and rarely see each other in person for the rest of our lives, that's exactly how i'm going to remember you - that person i got in a fight with the summer of my senior year of high school.

so for now, lets be friends, lets forget time is fleeting, and lets not fight. later we can worry about fitting each other into our busy lives, but for now all we have is each other, so lets not lose sight of that.

summer should be a good time.
summer will be a good time.
happy graduation, my fellow classmates.

so very close.

one more week. that is a fact i needed to be reminded of. its the only thing keeping me going right now, and i lost sight of it for a while there, but a new friend of mine put me back on track. one more week and then.... freedom.

one more week and band is over. one more week and school is essentially over. unless watching movies and playing wii just became complicated, difficult tasks. (sorry sir, "tasst") one more week till the band banquet. one more week until i can stop worrying about these meaningless things and worry about graduation. that senior 6 flags trip. my eagle ceremony (that you need to be at). summer camp. my mission trip to NYC. my cousin's graduation trip that gives me an excuse to escape the bubble to austin. these all come second to this week. this week is band. everyday after school for as long as mason says. after that its rush home and study my ass off for 2 AP tests, one of which i'm completely unprepared for because Flora can't teach micro, as much of a great guy he is. and a competent businessman and teacher i'm sure... but he doesnt know the material he's supposed to be teaching. anyway (sorry for the ADD moments. its habit.), after i finish those AP tests thursday morning and thursday afternoon, i immediately get to have the spring concert. then its friday. yay? no. more after school band practice. why? the concert on saturday morning at 10:30 at the majestic. what does this mean? it means i'll probably have to be at the band hall at like, 6 something. its awesome. cant wait.

but, after that contest, i never have to play that freaking symphony (which actually sounds great, its just the pressure of playing it perfectly that sucks), the stupid march (if you can call it playing.. out of all 200 some measures, before repeats, i play 20. i cant get far enough away from that one), and Circus Overture (hmm... no snide comment for this one. its pretty fun. hard, but i'll miss it)

and after those AP tests, high school is over. basically. like i said, playing video games and watching movies and doing "projects" that take the thought process of a 5th grader.... none of that counts. the hard part is over after thursday.

so very close now. so very, very close.

so it turns out people actually read this! thanks guys for telling me this; i thought i was talking to myself :]

so sorry for being depressing last post. it was that whole i'm-jacked-up-on-caffeine-and-can't-sleep-but-i'm-so-very-very-tired state of being that just brings me down to the life-ranting level. i guess because i have nothing better to do except sit and think. and find websites like this, but that's a different story completely. so again, as much as some enjoyed that post, sorry for bringing the mood so down.

i just got back from senior parent night. i think my mom put it best... this is the first smack in the face. yeah, my cap and gown came in, but that wasn't nearly as bad as this. this was the first real thing that said, yes, parents, your kid is just about gone. and i guess this kinda goes with whatever i was ranting about last time, but i took things away from senior parent night, even if it was for the parents. i realized that we have 3 months. maybe 4. then life.... well, doesn't start; it just keeps going, but drastically changes. for better or worse. of course, we all know that, but have you sat down and thought about it? every thing you know will be different. every habit, every responsibility, every day will change. no nagging parents, sure. but then again, no one to go to except over a phone or maybe you can fit in a visit next holiday. the two people (in my case at least) that were always there to get me out of trouble, tell me to walk her to the door, give me an extra 20 for some food on the way, tell me no when i'm screwing up, schedule haircuts, remind me school's tomorrow, feed me..... those two won't be around all the time. its grow up time... still, for better or worse. the freedom will be nice, but don't forget what peter's uncle always said about great power.

its.... scary. and however much we yell and scream about how we've been ready to leave this damn bubble for 10 years now, i think we're all scared out of our minds somewhere deep down (some much deeper than others) about starting to live by ourselves. and i don't mean physically move out and live in a house or dorm or whatever away from our parents, but live on our own. make our own choices, do our own thing. it really is scary as hell, and that part of me that ran to mommy's bed during the thunderstorms doesn't want to go. the rest of me is beyond ready to, but there's that part that is... well, scared.

and i made these epiphanies tonight during mrs. springer's speech. i, kyle wilkinson, will miss my parents. there, i said it. and its true. i know, i know, its a surprise to me too, but its so true.

so that's my sentimental garble of the night. i really hope i'm not the only one who has this realization. i know i do things mostly on my own now, but its like i'm a training tightrope walker, and i'm at that point where tightrope walking is a breeze. i can do it with my eyes closed and a smile on my face. i might even juggle while going across. but now the ringleader takes down the safety net below me and i'm freaking out. its just like before, but now its really all on me to get things right. and.... i dunno about that one.

oh, man. wow.

I'm sure by the time anyone finds this, it will have been months at very least.

but anyway, i come out of the long period of non-bloggy-ness in a bad mood. what were the odds? why else would i rant? and where else? things have certainly happened since my last post, but are they relevant? i didnt think so. a new computer, a new girlfriend, a new ex-girl friend... christmas, easter, my birthday... single for months now, a different room to call my own, accepted to college... senioritis, prom is coming up, my always changing friend-base... eagle scout award.... does any of it really matter? sure, i can talk and talk about all of them for hours... or pages, whatever... but who cares?

i have 3 whole, complete friendships. 3 people i hold nothing back from and they still keep me around. i think they know who they are, and i know a few people who would read this and think thats them, and it is certainly not. those 3 people keep me going. because i think they matter. the relationship i have with each of them matter. no one needs to care about it besides us. each relationship is whole and complete. sure, they've all had rough moments, but it just... lasts. college won't change that. everyone else.... i dunno if i'll see them ever again, and i seriously doubt i will care in a year or two. am i superficial for that? am i heartless? i don't think so, but you be the judge. those 3 people though, i won't lose them. and if i did, i would feel like a part of me is... gone. something lost that will never be recovered. most of the 'friends' i have are replaceable. i'm sure they'd all love to hear that. sure, they are all unique in someway, but their position in my life is just.... replaceable. but then there are those 3 people. no one will ever sit there and listen to me rant the way i have in the past... i will never know anyone else who is so much on the same brainwave as we are that we can finish each others sentences, understand completely what the other one is saying, even if its a text or jibberish or a funny face with the tiniest twitch that says everything.

and the longer i think about it, i realize more and more i'm carelessly tossing around these important parts of my life with so blatantly unimportant, superficial, material, plain stupid parts that its just depressing. i take some of the most important things in my life for granted, knowing they'll always be there and not realizing i only notice them when i need them. thats just so... wrong.

i guess i'm not really in a bad mood, technically. its certainly not a good mood, but its not bad. its just.... well, one of those three puts it best: blah.

yes yes, blah is how i feel. useless. a long time ago, i made a post comparing living and surviving. right now, i'm surviving. i hope you understand the difference. i'm just.... here. i havent changed anything. i'm not doing anything useful. important. lasting.

i'm not extraordinary.

i'm not unique, i'm not original, i'm not anyone's first choice. im just here. everyone knows kyle. sure, i have a funny comment once or twice, but in the big scheme of things, i'm background music. i'm that musician in a bar that plays for himself because no one is really listening to him. i'm always here, but where is my group of friends? one here, one there, one in that group, one in that other group. all my friends aren't friends with each other, and have friend groups of their own that i wonder in and out of depending on my mood. do i have a group of friends? sure, i have 10 or 12. but will any of them really consider me if they decide to go to six flags with a group of friends this summer? nope. will any of them think of me when putting together a party? nah. i'm just there when convenient. background. a filled bit of space.

do i have that one person i can always confide in? yes, as mentioned, i have 3. do they invite me to things? of course, but its one and one usually. its not like i'm besties with the whole group if we ever got together in a group. i'm always the outsider because i dont commit to one group of people. i just cant. it doesnt work that way. and so i suffer.

i suppose i'm rambling at this point, appropriately, but its all for myself, sorry. did i consider you when writing this? not really. i'm just ranting. will i even read over this to make sure it makes intelligible thoughts? nah.

i guess the whole point is..... i have friends, but not many wholesome ones. to everyone else, i'm just... there. and thats how i'm seeing myself right now. as just surviving. breathe in, breathe out. taking up space. mostly just a consumer. a leech. a tag along in life. the kid who sits there and laughs with everyone and partakes in the cookie cake eating, but none of them know me. the one who everyone says 'what's up?' in the halls to, but never waits for an answer. because no one really wants to know. if you've made it this far, you either care what really is up, or you're so incredibly bored that you don't have ANYTHING better to do except listen to (read) a pitiful excuse for expressing a jumbled thought process.

does anything really matter besides those precious relationships? they teach me in sunday school that its all about my relationship with God. does the same kinda idea hold true in the rest of life? eh. who knows. if you do, please, do enlighten me. i'd love a deep conversation about this kinda stuff. i'm about sick of all the other conversations right now.

well well well.

it certainly has been awhile, huh? all too long, friend, all too long. Ah, but now that we are together again, what should I talk about? Such a predicament it is.

About once or twice a day, I say to myself, hey, that would be an interesting topic to write a blog about. but when i really start to think of it, and what i could and would say, it turns out i really dont have anything more than a series of random facts that sometimes relate.

for example, i say to myself, hey, i could write a rather entertaining blog about the oddities of my bathroom. oh, yes, i say to myself, that would be very interesting indeed. but then i realize there are only a small number of things i can elaborate on, and suddenly it is no longer a substantial blog entry. It would look something like this:

1. The toilet paper must come out the top in the front. Please tell me i'm not the only person to do this. If the paper is coming out the wrong way, in a manner where you have to do an awkward kind of push-up on the roll to make it come out the bottom, I go out of my way to turn it around. Not like i have anything better to do as i sit there anyway, so why not.
2. there is a blood stain on my bathroom rug. I think that i'm the only person in my house that notices it every time i go to the bathroom or shower, mostly because it was my nose bleed that put it there.
   
3. the door is made of cheap wood with various amorphous, shapeless figures made of the patterns. possibly one of the most entertaining things to do after fixing the roll on the wall is make rational, coherent shapes that tell a story. The story is always different, and always slightly bizarre. A small test of the imagination, if you will.
4. I do the above with the water droplets on the shower wall every morning.
   

now, as entertaining as this list may be, it is not nearly long enough to qualify as a full fledged blog entry. The other various topics I could write about include, but are never limited to, what i got for christmas, the nostalgia that comes with repeating holidays like christmas, my birthday, how much i hate having my birthday so close to christmas, why my new mac beats your pc, honor band, the new semester, the things i hate about the new semester, the things i hate about mrs mcmurtry - like surprise timed writings, the cruel and unusual deaths i think up for her during class instead of doing said timed writing, haley's new puppy, haley's boy problems, how cool her friends are and how i now understand why she goes to flomo so often, how i switched rooms with connor, the pros and cons of dating in high school, the pros and cons of doing various other things in high school, or even my opinion after watching the rocky horror picture show with my dad, who knows how to fit in at midnight showings of it.

these are all excellent ideas, and there are many others, but i find that none of them have the proper substance to fill a blog entry. or else i don't have the capacity as a writer to make a whole blog entry of them. one or the other. but all at once, they seem to be too much. i have so much on my mind and so much to talk about that it is simply overwhelming and impossible to stay on any one topic for long. but that's probably just the ADD at the same time.

anyway, if any of those topics particularly caught your eye, do tell and i'll try a little harder to make a whole blog of it. or at least expand on it in some way, however short that may be.

oh just for kicks...

you know its been too long since the last post when it forces you to log in again even though you have it set to do that automatically....

i really dont have a point to this at the moment. it wasnt like 'oh thats a great idea, i'll go write something about it!'. no, this was more of a 'oh i'm bored and i havent posted in awhile and i feel kinda bad about it so i think i'll go write about something and ramble on since i cant sleep anyway'.

the no sleep thing is kinda weird, since we fell back an hour over halloween. you'd think i would be able to sleep, since 11 feels like 12, but no. so here we are. oh, halloween. very entertaining. the friday before, the 30th, i dressed up like a pirate. not for halloween, but for the senior prank that everyone, and i mean just about EVERYONE pansied out of. it really only works when lots of people do it - not 6. but anyway, the next night, for the first time in my life, i didn't go trick or treating, mostly. i went to a party instead, and since it was a halloween party and i had my pirate outfit from the day before, i grabbed it and changed it up a little from my fighter pirate to my party pirate. i exchanged my sword for a bottle of rum. i figured that and some light eye liner to go with it was different enough to pass by the people who had seen me on friday. at the party, we ended up going trick or treating, but only to one specific house: Mr. Director Samuel Scott Mason's most humble abode. i cant say i had ever seen his house before that. its a nice, modest one story with a fairly well kept yard. we rang the door bell, but the only thing that answered was a little white blur through the glass of the front door that was barking at us.

what are the odds, mason doesnt do halloween.

no happiness.

anyway, after that, i thought i was done with good ol' pirate outfit, but no. the church i go to has an annual church halloween party. the high schoolers set up a haunted house / scare the crap out of you house for the middle schoolers, then we all eat and watch some halloween movie. this year we watched scooby doo. they met up with the granddaughter of ichabod crane in happy little sleepy hollow. anyway, you can go watch it yourself.... i wouldnt wanna spoil anything. so back to the pirate outfit.... considering it was a church party, i didnt grab another bottle of rum (another because i ended up leaving the first one at the party), but went back to the sword. but, i couldnt just be a normal pirate, so i added some HEAVY black eyeliner and fake blood everywhere, staining the white shirt, fake slits on my neck and face, sharpie tattoos on my arms, some quazi-five oclock shadow... i went crazy with it.

this picture was actually taken after the fact, so i was looking a little more casual than for most of the night.

ok, so you know when you pass a kid that was in one of your elementary school classes and they remind you of those days? well that happened to me today. after school, i passed catherine welch. i think thats how you spell it. and thats the name she went by in 5th grade. i dunno if she ever took up her real name, leah. anyway, i sat next to her most of the year in 5th grade, since our last names were so close. i never really got to know her, and after 5th grade i'm pretty sure we never spoke again. we went our seperate ways, finally being given enough freedom to have an identity and a group of friends that we fit into. thats when cliques started - middle school. they couldnt exist in 5th grade, since they forced us to stand here, eat here, sit there, do this, think that, and so on. all we had was recess. but since we only knew the kids in our class due to the lack of freedom, we just chose to stay with kids in that class, since it was them that we were most comforable with. no freedom = no separation = no cliques. middle school, we at least got to hang out in the hallways, we had one elective that first year to start separating into groups based on interests, and we didn't have assigned lunch tables, at long, long last.

but yeah, i passed her today, and it made me think about how simple life was in 5th grade. very little responsibility, very little freedom. we couldnt drive anywhere. couldn't even go get a meal by ourselves. couldn't get to our friends house alone unless it was by bike, and even then we had to borrow the phone to check in when we got there. our parents took us shopping and only bought what they liked. no girl drama, since we didn't really like girls yet. i had my crushes, but i wasnt getting a girl friend any time soon. now days, we have to keep track of girl drama, money, a job, classes, actual homework, what to wear, how to fit in, what clique we're in, and on and on we go..... but hey, we have cell phones and cars. worth it? i guess its all just how you look at it. growing up can be fun, but it can be a pain in the ass. it should be a pain in the ass if youre doing it right. if youre just sliding by, still having your parents take care of all your responsibiliites... man, youre screwed for college. mommy and daddy are only there for so long. take care of your own crap. like the seat belt ticket i got....i took care of that on my own. there was no "oh no, mommy, i got a ticket, go take care of it for me!" i know we live in coppell, but grow a pair and do it yourself. take things into your own hands, because you're gonna have to sometime. i'm not saying dont go to your parents ever, but dont use them as a continuing crutch. we grew out of that one.

wow, i guess i can ramble for awhile even when i dont have anything to talk about. go me. i'm gonna try to keep this updated a little more than once a month from now on, so i wont keep you waiting tirelessly so much anymore, since i know how much you just live for my blogs. toodles.