Toni and I went to see Eternal Sunlight of the Spotless Mind tonight. It took me a while to get my bearings once it was over with. Charlie Kaufman's movies are usually like that. You don't really know whether you like them or hate them until much later, but you know they affected you.

Short synopsis of this one: I'm not telling. Its really an interesting plot, one that grabs you at various times and leaves you hanging in others. The reason I know I liked it was because i found myself caring in the last ten minutes about the outcome.

Ok, I'll tell a little. Its about a couple who breaks up after a fight, and the girl goes to a doctor to have her memory of the guy erased. The guy does the same after he finds out what she did, almost as a vindictive shot at her. Anybody feeling sympathetic yet? During the course of erasure of course the guy starts feeling regret for what's being done to him, and fights like mad to stop it, but trapped within his mind he can't.

I should stop here and point out that the movie kind of starts at the end, then jumps back to the beginning (of sorts, anyway) and leads back up to the starting point and beyond.

At times I found it incredibly painful to watch. I've lost count of how many times last year I longed for a way to erase a certain someone from my life completely, to excise her from every day of my life from August 24 1996 onward. If there had been a way to do it, I probably would have jumped on it. I might have regretted it, although if the procedure had worked there wouldn't have been anything to regret. Unlike the movie though, the individual in question isn't anyone who belongs in my life. That piece of insight came to me in a bit of a flash towards the end.

Austin is a town in which you can be almost assured that if you have anything in common with someone that you will run into them sooner or later. I realized then something about the Ex: I've only run into her once in the year since we broke up. And that was because of her boyfriend (now husband), not her. Talk about an awakening--I have absolutely nothing in common with someone I spent that much time practically killing myself over.

I wish I'd realized that a long time ago. There's been a lot of lost time in the last year. Isn't that always the way though? Experience: something you gain long after you needed it.