The Crying Game

[d_aulnoy]

After re-reading my last post, it occurred to me that I'd mentioned things that made me cry with fair frequency recently, which makes me seem like more of a crier than I am, which is pretty sad, as, while I'll admit that I am a big crier, I rarely cry because of Art or other hypotheticals.  Infuriatingly, I cry when I'm angry, so anyone I've ever fought with stands a fair chance of having seen me in tears, friend or lover.  I also cry when I'm anxious or frustrated or overwhelmed, but I classify these in the "good cry" category: it vents the emotion and allows me to move on with my day.  But I'm ridiculously macho (macha?  sounds wrong, but possibly only because it translates into "urine" in Russian) about not crying because of physical pain, to the point of broken bones, and I'm generally not a sap, which was my original point.  But there are some exceptions ....

In order of most sappy to most respectable:

- Mercedes Lackey made me cry.  Seriously.  In Magic's Promise, when Vanyel is going on and on about how Tylendel was half of his soul and all of his heart.  Seriously, I'm welling up just thinking about it.

- You know the bad remake of "Dangerous Liaisons" starring Ryan Phillipe and Reese Witherspoon (of all people)?  Yep.  Gets me every time.

- "Rats" and the aformentioned Ellen Klages stories.

I'm blanking on additions, but I'm sure they're out there ... c'mon, refresh my memory.  What makes you cry?

Comments

wow, I'm a dork.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

When cats die in novels, every single time, no matter how silly the novel.

Mostly, I cry when I'm frustrated, pissed at myself, or find language failing (which wraps up both of the first two into a tidy package). Physically, I'll often cry from migraines, but seldom from any other kind of pain.

Last week, I started crying because we'd driven by a mother duck and and about a dozen babies about to attempt to cross a fairly busy road and I wanted to know they'd be okay and there was no way to know.

Re: wow, I'm a dork.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Ahhhhhh, animal death - that gets me, too, and then I think about _The Things they Carried_ (Vietnam era novel in which the narrator deliberately describes his troop slaughtering a calf, and then lapses into a lacuna, and then basically says, "Do you see what I did there? We didn't really kill a calf, but you reacted more strongly then you did to the deaths of ACTUAL PEOPLE, you hypocritical bleeding heart liberal, you."), and then I feel vaguely guilty. But, yeah, there's a scene from a Thomas Harris novel involving a kitten and a garbage disposal that still leaves me vaguely nauseated.*

*Er apologies for the imagery here, should you have been lucky enough to miss these two.

[belecrivain.livejournal.com]

A lot of things, but in terms of (pop) culture:

The end of the The Parable of the Sower, after they've arrived at the farm that will become Acorn, made me tear up a bit.

A Korean movie called Joint Security Area, which I can never watch again because I will start bawling from the opening credits.

And this is the ultimate in silliness: a YouTubed documentary last week, Rocky Jumped a Park Bench, which is not worth watching if you're not already a fan of Philadelphia or the Rocky movies, but it juxtaposed images of Rocky's proposing to Adrian (at the Philly zoo) with Rocky visiting Adrian's grave (apparently they left the "gravestone" at the Laurel Hill cemetery) and Mike noticed I had a lump in my throat.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

I have not seen either of those, but now I am tempted to watch them just to see if they'll have the same effect on me (I'm not much of a Rocky fan, but I suspect the latter, at least, will). I believe this is what they call "masochism."

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hmmm, what makes me cry

Buffy season finales 2 and 5

That SNL skit with Al Gore visiting the set of the West Wing

Parts of "Tigana" by Guy Gavriel Kay.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Season 7, dude. Though those may be tears of rage at what Marti Noxon did to MY SHOW.

Oh. And, as long as we're on the Joss train ... that scene in "Serenity" where River dives into certain death to save her brother? Yeah.

And, of all things, a line in _Kushiel's Avatar_ along similar lines. Apparently, selfless behavior hits me where I live.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I am also a crier! I cry when I'm angry or frustrated or anxious, and embarassingly, when I'm talking about things that make me frustrated or anxious. That's pretty bad when I'm trying to have a calm discussion about an issue that I'm upset about with my boss and tears start leaking out. Erk.

On the Art side of things, I rarely cry when i read books, so any that make me cry are standouts. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak had me in constant tears for the last forty pages. The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt made me cry on no less than three occasions. Dreamhunter/Dreakquake by Elizabeth Knox made me cry.

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

Ahahaha! I have not read any of these. Now, I will have to go and track them down (it might be the afor-mentioned masochism, or it might just be that anything that can evoke this kind of a reaction is likely to be powerful ... well, adjusted for the personal subjectivity that can put things like "Cruel Intentions" in queu). And as I'm thinking ... Jeffrey Archer has one short story about a squabbling couple that had me imitating Alice. Will have to track that one down and add it to the post in the "highbrow" category ....

[fireriven.livejournal.com]

When I was younger, I hardly ever cried (which is shocking considering some of the things I endured). However, I think all those dammed tears hit a saturation point a few years back and now I find my eyes pricked with tears at the most ridiculous of things. Along with things that deserve it.

Some examples (both silly and otherwise):
1. I cry when I get incredibly angry or deeply frustrated (this is really, really irritating).
2. I cry at weddings of good friends.
3. I cried ridiculously hard at the end of Moulin Rouge (and 50 First Dates, oddly enough).


Mercedes Lackey also made me cry over Vanyel, but at a different point, I think.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

Found you through a comment you left on a poem in cadhla's journal. Many similar interests and friends. I hope it's all right if I friend you?

[d-aulnoy.livejournal.com]

But of course!