A sunny day for my birthday! I seem to have a mutually antagonistic relationship with the sun ("You again!" "Gah! You again?!" etc) but it's great for today as there will be a potluck picnic piss-up at the park, followed by drinks at an apartment with hardwood floors. Sambuca feels left out, of course, but it's time she found her own friends. Andrea's bringing her dog, anyway, and dogs are usually threatened around Sam, often feeling the need to "act out." So it's for the best.
Jess and Lindsay just stopped by for freezies and a smoke on the patio. How are people so cool? I had to photograph them.
Matt and I had a minor fight last night (well, minor for him - rather shrill for me) and then this morning he actually got up at 7am to make me breakfast in bed before work! I don't think anyone has ever made me breakfast in bed before ... It was an egg and cherry tomatoes and spiced gouda cheese. I am in love.
Birthday wishes for the year: to become wiser and a better cook, to have a garden or at least a mini greenhouse on the patio; to publish at least once in the lit-mags, to learn Japanese, quit smoking for good, write and direct a 60-minute play for the Fringe, visit the Hometown, and go on epic rampages in Vancouver, Salt Spring Island, and Comox.
Strange thing - apparently a lot of pet owners read the phrase 'animal digest' on the ingredients label of their pet food, and they google it, and my blog is the top hit. Crazy! That entry was from January and I've had a few comments from people I don't know, freaked to shit about the stuff they've been feeding their animals. Makes me feel good and active and helpful and all that jazz. I'm glad it's getting out there.
Good day - the cocktails started at about 1pm, and I had a gorgeous breakfast of eggs and cheese on toast, and went for some long walks, and did laundry. Steph came over and we watched a cheezy, satisfying movie, and I had a good conversation - a telephone one - with my man, who's in Comox for the weekend.
Isn't gin wonderful?
A strange, awful headache that thuds and pounds for no reason. I'm supposed to go to a party tonight - I want to go to a party tonight - a party hosted by a girl I don't know, and it's her birthday no less, and it's always kind of scary and thrilling for me to do things like this, even though I know some of the people who will be there - this girl could be my new best friend, or I could hate her, or I could get stupidly drunk and make a scene, or it could be just good drink after good drink and stories and hugs with friends, waking up with a warm feeling in the morning ... But this headache is worrying me. It's not a normal one, like a cold or a flu or a hangover or a tired headache - it hurts to exist, and it reaches down to the tops of my ears. We'll see. The headache would probably go away if I had outside stimuli, such as the vague terror that meeting new people gives me, or maybe it will go away if I just drink at home and go to bed early. I wish I didn't have to decide.
The Second Cool Purchase was two "trashy" books, a dollar each at the Sally Ann - a biography of Vivien Leigh, who played Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone With the Wind," resplendent with black-and-white photos from a bygone era; and "Out on a Limb" by Shirley MacLaine - finished reading it already, not bad, but as with the film "Super Size Me," not quite as enjoyable as it could have been because I was already familiar with the information being presented and argued.
----
Gah. Steph just phoned and wanted to know if I'd come over to watch an old Sarah Jessica Parker movie. I told her I had a headache and felt like I was refusing sex.
Cool purchases - especially two of them - make me feel so gosh-darn happy that I don't even have time to feel guilt over the whole Capitalist Monster thang. Though, who am I kidding.
Cool Purchase # 1 - four cocktail glasses from the Bay. Yes, the Bay. It was amusing to stagger through the cosmetics section on the way to the escalator with Matt and Ben. Use your imagination. Anyway, the glasses were a necessity - I've been consistently breaking glasses lately - or people who visit and become drunk madmen-and-women break them for me - and the last straw came on Sunday night when I broke what is actually referred to as my "Special Drinking Glass." I never, ever have sipped a cocktail from anything but this glass in the past year. It was purchased for a song at Value Village and is one of those collectible "Visions of British Columbia" numbers that could be bought from Petro Canada gas stations in the early 90's with a fill-up. The point was to collect all six, or whatever, and I had this one, and it was perfect because two ice cubes, one shot of fine liquor, and up to the top with mix would result in the Dream Cocktail. There were no measurements involved, it was just the right size, and I liked the weight of it in my hand, I liked to heft it, if you will. So on Sunday night Matt and I were having what has been called one of our "faux-arguments" in which we vainly try to impress each other - or maybe ourselves - with our mighty vocabularies and go too far and deeply insult each other and rage and feel upset at how domestically typical it all is, and naturally I was mixing a rye and coke at the time, and to punctuate my frustration I actually threw an ice cube into my Special Drinking Glass, which shattered on impact. I came as close to crying as it's possible for an oversensitive girl and her ... Special Drinking Glass ... to be. Anyway. Got some new ones.
Did I write for way too long about that?
Maybe my second cool purchase will have to wait. Yes, it shall! Ha, everybody has to wait.
Am I Mia Farrow?
No, of course not - I have a "full face".
But ... Am I Mia Farrow in "Husbands and Wives"? Intellectually I mean? Maybe. We had a mini Woody Allen marathon the other night, and as 'Husband and Wives" plowed its way through the misery and dejection of its four principal characters I was shocked to find myself laughing bitterly at many of Mia's neurotic and wretchedly low-self-esteemed lines. Matt kept laughing and poking me, so I'm not the only one. She's constantly asking her husband if she's "boring" with absolutely no provocation; she broods in the evening about her lack of writing skills and her quiet terror of criticsm from those she is close to; she obsesses over relationships that are not her own and randomly throws hissy fits that are subconciously manipulative. I think I am her twin - but damn, if only I could also have the cheek bones.
A good marathon, though - Matt, Ben, Michael, Colin, and Me(a). Cheese, bread, chips, kiwi, blueberries, red wine, and some sort of carbonated sodium-free fruit beverage. At one point on the patio I was pondering whether or not *everybody* has brains that try to sabotage their bodies, and Ben was woefully agreeing, and then Michael said that actually a lot of people don't have that problem. And Ben and I talked at length about how our self-criticism is actually a form of highly enjoyable masochism, and we're really just arrogant assholes who identify with the genius characters in movies. So fun.
A genuine Taco Party on Thursday afternoon/early-evening (as opposed to the much-documented "sausage party") - five gals - me, Jess, Steph, Lindsay, and Heather - hanging out at Jess's pimpin' bachelorette pad, slinging back beer and discussing men, politics, work, addiction, pop culture and beauty standards. All of us were chain smoking cheap cigarettes and bopping about to the Party Monster soundtrack - cue sultry female vocals: "Being famous is so nice ... Lick my ass ... Suck my dick;" "Frank, Frank, Frank Frank Sinatra. Do you know Frank Sinatra? *high giggling* He's dead. Dead," etc. A glorious time. Went home about 9:30-ish, trying to convince Steph to come over and watch Kill The Man - "Can you imagine? Two film buffs? Rye? What could be better -" but she declined with the excuse that she "had to party," which she did, and paid for it the next morning at work - ha! - all hungover and listless whereas I was merely angsty and disgusted for having actually watched twenty minutes of said Kill The Man which, despite a superb performance by Luke Wilson, was bitterly disappointing and lame.
And now I have somehow fallen prey to Weboggle - yes, that's right, online Boggle - and it's eating up my hours. I'm doing good, though. Placed second my last round, having worked my way up from 25 or so.
Fuck. I am not a Catholic, but I am a Christian, although I'm sure that many right-wing Christians you'd ask would say I'm not. I believe in intelligence and love; those are the two cornerstones of my personal faith, and while I believe in tolerance and a live-and-let-live attitude, this story, printed in the globeandmail.com, makes me absolutely sick. In short: a young girl with a gluten allergy requested to receive a rice wafer for communion instead of a wheat one; her request was denied. So .... Although I am not well-versed in the Catholic side of Christianity, I assume this little girl is doomed to hell. She will burn for eternity because she is not consuming the traditional wafer. The girl's mother has written letters to the Pope, and no answer has since been reported. The priest at her local church has refused to give her communion. As a liberal Protestant I feel this makes no difference in terms of eternal life, but according to the article, many people feel it does, and I am disgusted at the rape of God's love that is evidenced by this event. Shame on Everybody. Jesus would throw over your fucking temple tables.
Tell me, is this a weird comment? Cuz Matt said it was the "weirdest comment of the day."
"I told Ryan the cow joke and he liked it."
Meh?
Last night was uber-fun: Pete, Dev, and Steph came over to watch Matt's fabulous documentary ("Schimpact: An Afternoon With Pete") and "Rebel Without A Cause." Very strange to see James Dean in a movie - as a teenager I had posters of him on my bedroom wall because I thought he was hot and broody and also I dug black-and-white art, but I had never seen him act, and it was electrifying. A good actor, maybe not great, but he had that THING, that Marilyn Monroe thing, mesmerizing in a ghostly way, like he wasn't a real person or even a real actor, but something otherworldly ... I've been trying to figure out if it's because of the icon status he attained through early death, or he really was a different creature, not human. Anyway. It made up for the overall crappiness of the film as a whole. Why is it considered a classic? Even the famous car chase scene was nothing compared to "Bullit," or even (cringe) "Grease."
Gah! Some stressful moments - tried to check my student loan status on-line but forgot my application number - a rowdy search ensued, and I finally found it written on the back of a liquor store receipt, in bright green ink. I get maximum funding, which is a relief, but also terrifiying because provincial grants have been eliminated which means ALL of it is loan as opposed to just half. Yay Gordon Campbell! It's the kind of day when RATM's "Bullet in the Head" deserves to be shouted from the Parliament rooftops.
A fun morning of reading "US Weekly" and "People" .... I mean, working. Then errands, and I had Yop (drinkable yogurt!) for the first time and it was fantastic! Don't know why I'm so excited. I also learned how to use a fax machine, which was intensely pleasing - it's like magic. ("Weird ... Where did the bread go?")
I'm angry at distance lately. I think it's so stupid that I only see my parents once a year and my favourite brother and his fam, only sporadically. I wish we could all live in the same city, or at least the same island, and that way I could go out for mid-week tea with my mum and yet not have the stress that would accompany actually living with her, and I could babysit my neices every once in a while and we could have regular Sunday dinners, or something. It's weird, I don't normally "miss" my family members, but I just had two good visits with them in a row and there will likely only be one, possibly two, more before I leave for Japan for a minimum of two years. What's the point in having a world so big? Geography sucks.
The trick, I suppose, is to become disgustingly wealthy and then I can just hop aboard my private jet for weekend visits whenever the fancy strikes me. Money usually means very little to me - all I need is rent, books, food, and gin - but in moods like this I can't help but be wistful. Reading "The Rolling Stone Film Reader" doesn't exactly help, in some ways. I got over wanting to be a movie star years ago, but their lifestyle is appealing, and even as a lowly director, I could make enough money to see my family more than once a year.
I've been glued to "The Rolling Stone Film Reader" (ed. Peter Travers) all weekend. It's a fabulous book! My mom bought it for me at Chapters for $4.99 in 1997 and I still go back to the articles for nostalgic and educational purposes. There's stories about people like Meryl Streep and John Travolta that were written in the 70's, which are fascinating because things have changed so much since then, plus behind-the-scenes stuff about directors like Goddard and Fellini and Hitchcock and Lucas. Perfect for a lazy Sunday recovering from the nagging flu, with cocktails at noon, popcorn for lunch, etc. There's some cheap-ass copies available on abe.com, for anyone who's interested.
Just watched Woody Allen's "Bullets Over Broadway." An engaging, pulpy film, with signature Allen self-analysis and obsession over the superficial, yet light and plotty, which I was definitely in the mood for. A good performance by John Cusack, who is perhaps the only male lead in a Woody Allen movie who does not ruthlessly immitate Woody Allen. (I'm thinking here of Kenneth Branaugh in "Celebrity" - blech! He is too physically big to pull off neurotic urban Jew.)
How important is it that we separate the artist from the person? Allen is one of my favourite directors, and yet his personal life, his morals, make me shudder ... An even graver example is Roman Polanksi, or hell, Charlie Chaplin - excellent artists, and yet practically criminals in their personal lives. Should this affect our support of their art? Should our disapproval extend to the products of their creation? It seems a bit to me like hating a child because their mother has wronged you. Whatever. I guess I don't understand why the most talented tend to be the most inhuman.
Some quotes I've been meaning to post, recorded during a shindig at our place a week or two ago:
"So we gotta blow up a lotta logging trucks. What's your point?" ~ Ford
"Wow. You apparantly played mini-golf with the wrong crowd." ~ Ford
""Me? Jealous? Why should I care about your stupid quote wall?" ~ Matt
"Why were you throwing salt at him?" ~ Joy
"I wish you didn't have a skull, Joy, so I could lick that genius brain." ~ Ford
""If there's one thing you don't want to lose, it's tampons." ~ Heather
"You can give him a weapon AND get him drunk for $3.95." ~ Matt
"I'm gonna get like Bill, guys. I'm gonna 'Bill it up'." ~ Matt
And to end, a two-parter:
"Hollywood has always eroticized the Orient." ~ Matt
"But Asian chicks ARE really hot." ~ Ford
A gloriously sunny day that's not too hot. The weekend looms. What will I do? It feels like this is the first time in months that I've had no weekend plans. The usual options - parties, bars, movies, living room hang-outs, the beach - don't hold much appeal right now - I feel like doing something new. I'd like to travel somewhere. Maybe Salt Spring? Pop in on Genevieve? Ah, but there's the money thing. Maybe some sort of creative project. A photo essay? Blast, the money thing! I still haven't gotten that roll of film developed from the last photo essay project. Maybe red wine and cheese and French bread and writing a short story. Again, that's not new. Though it's been a while since a short story was written. I do have an entire notebook full of one-page writing exercises, most of which are postcard stories - perhaps it's time to UNIFY them with a THEME and have a COMPLETED BODY OF WORK as a result. There's maybe 50 pages. Hm. I sort of want to go blackberry picking. Or surfing, except I'm scared of sharks.
My God this sucks! You don't update in a week and feel fine, then you update TWICE (or three times) and you're like, Why has nobody updated??? And totally forget that people just don't have TIME, sometimes. And it's all so confused, and there's Johnny Cash and gin, and you're like, It's fine if I do it but others, no. And then you get embarassed because even if you delete the entry, the title and first sentence will still appear on the Main Page.
Nothing angers me like poorly written film reviews. Poorly written books, poems, films themselves - often they can have some merit, but when you're critiquing something it's suicide to be critiqued yourself. Today's gem from rottentomatoes.com, written by Brian McKay, pertaining to Peter Bogdonovich's "The Last Picture Show":
"Not only does she pull of the role of the girl that everyone wants to fuck (and who wants to return the favor) quite admirably, but that girl was FINE back in the day. My God, what a rack. It's too bad she didn't do any "Moonlighting" in softcore afterward."
This is almost as bad as the Bitch article in which "Lost in Translation" director Sofia Coppola was jealously criticized for making "the easiest pitch in the world" which "must have been useful when pitching to Daddy."
An odd week. I've had the flu, complete with dizziness and fever and hot-and-cold flashes, which always makes me feel so surreal and disconnected to the world, which in turn makes me depressed, which seems to make the physical illness worse. But things are looking on the up-and-up! Had a wonderful visit from Clint and Elisa on Tuesday, and they brought their three gorgeous daughters whom I haven't seen in over two years. Normally I don't like children but my neices are fascinating, so well-behaved and talkative and cute, with loads of personality. They're crazy about all things pink and purple, and were so gentle that Sambuca actually allowed them to pet her! (she loathes children and in most cases hisses at them) After they went to bed the grown-ups got smashed in the living room and caught up. It was a wonderful visit and I was so sad to leave for work the next morning, knowing they would be gone when I got back.
Kudos to the man of Steele! He is the reason I am able to update right now. A nice cold beer is coming his way.
MATT: I'm a good man. I like to mastrubate.
ME: You do?
MATT: Don't you?
ME: Well, yes.
Steph's birthday par-tay last night - many pitchers of beer, and Jess gave me a Boone's Sangria fridge magnet obtained through her new "connections," which pleased me to no end, and I stayed at the bar past the last bus and rode home with Robbie, then met my parents for a goodbye brekkie at 4:30 am (seriously!) at which my eyes were still red and I shouted, "Robbie drove 8 of us home in his little car and the cops had a talk with him but they let us go cuz he was sober!" Not what the 'rents wanted to hear, I think.
And today: breakfast at Valentino's with Matt Colin and Steph, which I feel slightly guilty about because I think I was supposed to go for brunch with Ben and Co., except I listened to his message when I was drunk last night/morning and then erased it, and I'm now unsure if that was for today or tomorrow ... Then movies ("Celebrity" and some dumb John Cleese film) and lots of snacks and gin. The flu seems to be improving. I bought an Anne Cameron novel at a francophone garage sale for $2. I hope I didn't rip them off.
No, the title isn't talking about ME, it's talking about the update.
Just a quick apology about the lackage in the way of updateages - my life has no computer in it at the moment and also no spare time. When things return to normal (maybe Monday?) I will write a very very long update. For Michael.
"Man, sounds like you played mini golf with the wrong crowd." ~ Ford