A Room of One's Own

Starting to feel better

Today was colossally shitty. I think I spent about 13 hours having the shit hammered out of me. This lovely trial of a day culmanated in a three hour long meeting where all the hammering came to a beautiful ass beating crescendo.

I got home an hour and a half ago and have been slowly making my way back to being human. Amid chaos, I am always glad to see some kind of constant. One is Hugh Grant. I am happily sitting here watching what may have taken Love Actually's place as my favorite Hugh Grant movie. Notting Hill. It's because of Spike, the flatmate. He's just delightful. I love the typical Hugh Grant character. Complete lack of pride and shame, hopelessly dorky. Stumbles over the exact right thing to say.

I'm laying in bed and drinking a glass of wine while I do this. On top of that, I'm knitting a beret. Yes, it could be defined as raspberry. It is definitely lovely and made out of gorgeous yarn.

Despite my shit day, I am glad I can count on several things to easily bring me around. Hugh Grant, red wine, yarn.

I love not being able to sleep

I had about the most relaxing evening. I have spent a goo amount of time listening to Herbie Hancock's River - The Joni Letters, which I must say deserve every speck of its Grammy, sipping wine and knitting. Of course, the pattern is killing me and proved to be anything but relaxing. So I'm wound up. No pun intended. So my mind has crawled all over the place and I figured I'd dump it here and go to bed.

My house is not nearly as clean as it should be. I've been having fun. I'm been working out furiously. A combination of weight training, yoga and hiking. I feel fabulous but I'm spent a good amount of time away from home in doing this. Tomorrow, I shall clean.

I ahoul have practiced the guitar more today. I opted to take a very Scarlett O'Hara mind set today.

I get to go to Mexico in June with my sister and brother-in-law. This is either going to be amazingly fun or very much not.

In looking up the old friend mentioned in the previous post, I went to classmates.com and found that I had recent views of my profile. I guess when you view someone's profile, they log you in as a guest in that person's guestbook. Apparently, Dave's ex-wife did not know this when she looked up my profile two weeks ago. Now that is some damn funny stuff. Why would you look up someone who was dating your ex-husband after they broke up? Go ahead, scratch your head. I did.

I also found an email from a high school friend who recently got married. I am so happy for her.

I read something in a magazine at the gym that 30% of people think it's totally okay to lie in your profile on match.com. That's scary. What's wrong with these people? Eventually, people, the mask in gonna slip...

I have consumed an uncommonly small amount of alcohol in 2008. It's not that I was a lush before. I planned to scale back after New Years and I think I went deep.

I need to have people over for dinner. I have such an expansive collection of recipes I want to make and my daughter just didn't seem game for the Turkey Cutlets with Walnut Sage Sauce. I, personally, thought they were delicious.

I spent all day Valentine's Day with "I'm Fucking Matt Damon," stuck in my head. I made a joke about it earlier in the day and it was all down hill from there. I don't think it will ever NOT be funny.

Yep. That's about it. I am going to try to wrte something of interest soon instead of pointless drivel. But, well, I need to make myself sleepy. Job done.

Another reason to love TCM

I live for the 31 Day of Oscar. The best movies every made in one month. Sadly, I've missed the first two weeks but that is all being made up for tonight. I had every intention of turning is early after chasing a 4 year old and running a good solid five miles in 55 minutes. Stand By Me is on.

Shannon McGee was one of my best friends growing up. I could ride my bike to her house and did so every chance I got. We went to grade school, junior high, high school and junior college together. We lived for this movie. I had intentions for years of showing it to my nephew as it is THE rite of passage movie. He needed to see it. I still don't know if he has.

This movie is perfection. I love the fact that is has never, ever been marketed, or promoted as a Stephen King movie. Fact of the matter is that is comes from the same book of novellas as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption. In both movies, the thank him in the credits and that's it.

There is an amazing innocence about this movie. Perhaps it is my memory of watching this religiously when I was 12. It might be my never ending love of River Phoenix and the end feeling of loss of innocence surrounding my feelings about his death. That man was beautiful. Chris Chambers is how I will always remember him. Not dying on the sidewalk on Sunset Strip.

Moreover, it is just funny. There are still lines I recite on a regular basis without even thinging about it. "Oh, piss up a rope!" "Finding new and preferably disgusting ways to insult one's mother was always held in high regard." And, or course, "One food for the rest of my life? Easy. Pez. Cherry flavored Pez." It is the most real and honest dialogue and I can say that having never been a 12 year old boy.

On top of that, the cast is just interesting. New blood no one knew. John Cusack and Keifer Sutherland. It took me years to believe that Jerry O'Connell played Vern. And it kind of makes you sad that the only thing Wil Wheaton went on to do was Star Trek...

So, I'll be sitting here drinking more of the bottle of wine I opened than I had planned. I'll be Googling Shannon McGee shortly.