A somewhat desperate and vain attempt to quiet the naysayers in my head
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Bad Blogger, Bad Blogger!
I'm sorry I have not been posting as much lately. I have been excruciatingly busy and I apologize.
So I had the opportunity to watch Little MIss Sunshine a couple of days ago. What an absolute gem of a film. It swept the SAG Awards the other day and I believe it is a strong Best Picture candidate for the Oscars. Everything about this small independent film shines. Abigail Breslin plays Olive, a young, awkward girl who dreams of being a young beauty queen. Her dysfunctional family includes her father and an unsuccessful motivational speaker (Greg Kinnear), her all too honest and overtaxed mother (Toni Collette), her brother (Paul Danno) who has taken a vow of silence and not spoken in nearly a year, her gay uncle who has just been released from a psychiatric facility after trying to kill himself (Steve Carell of The Office), and her paternal grandfather (Alan Arkin) who is biting in his criticism of others and fighting his own demons.
The film follows the story of Olive, who is given the chance to compete in a beauty pageant in California. The family does not have the money to fly from their home in New Mexico, thus they embark on a trouble filled journey in the family's aging yellow VW Vanagon. The dialogue of the film is smart, fresh, and believable. The casting of the film is genius and each actor seems to own their character with such certainty and authenticity. I have followed the career of Toni Collette with particular interest since seeing Muriel's Wedding many years ago and she never disappoints, always bringing 110 percent to everything she does. Finally, the set design of this film deserves a special note of praise. Perhaps I appreciated it because it reminded me of places where I have grown up and visited, but everything from the dining room scene at the beginning of the film (complete with bad cabinets and Formica flooring) straight through to the beauty pageant scenes at the end of the film embody a reality that is seldom seen in film. If this picture wins multiple awards, it will continue a trend in Hollywood to award smaller less expensive films that are truly the voice of film today.
If you have not had the chance to see this film, rent it today! You will thoroughly enjoy every moment of it.
So we recently transitioned schedules at work. I am now working 8 PM - 7 AM for the next six months. I am a night person for sure, but it is definitely strange to be going to bed when everyone else is going to work. Then, I wake up and realize the sun is about to set in a couple of hours and it's almost time to go to work again. It puts a cramp in your social schedule for sure.
I had been doing so well at not getting sick this year, but the first cold has arrived. There have been several bugs flying around work and the one I have is mild in comparison to the others, so I am not complaining. Between the transition in schedules and the cold though, I am feeling like crap right now.
I have been reading State of Denial by Bob Woodward over the last week. It is almost beyond belief how incompetent GW and Co have been. Any kind of intellectual conversation or discussion about Iraq has never taken place. Woodward remarks on how Bush II never has questions or forces debate on any issues. Rather, he fills a cheerleader type role and keeps telling everyone how good a job they are doing. (The whole FEMA / Brownie debacle anyone?) Woodward and his sources mostly feel that Bush has no intellectual curiosity about such issues and is content to proceed full steam ahead at any cost. There have been several opportunities for the U.S. to clearly make an impact in Iraq and turn a bad situation into a good one. At every turn the current administration has bungled these opportunities and made the situation worse through its silencing of independent ideas and experienced voices. (The largest of these gaffes was disbanding the Iraqi Army. For a few million dollars, the Iraqi Army could have been kept on payroll and used for public works and civil projects that are badly needed across the country. Instead, Donald Rumsfeld and L Paul Bremmer disbanded the Army and alienated tens of thousands of trained Iraqi soldiers who turned around and started an insurgency.) Clearly Rumsfeld should have left long before he did, but the blame does not fall squarely on him. Rather, history will show that this entire presidential administration jeopardized the safety and security of our country by initiating a war in one of the most volatile areas of the world on false pretenses and will continue to spend hundreds of billions of United States tax dollars trying to put the pieces of Iraq back together. The long and the short of it is, it ain't gonna happen.
Ok, I know that I sound like I'm whining. And I am.
It is HELLA cold here. It is 32 degrees Fahrenheit or 0 degrees Celsius. I came out from work tonight and there was frost on my windshield. Not fog, FROST. We don't get cold weather like this in the Bay Area. I have never seen it snow here and I cannot ever remember seeing frost on my windshield. Thankfully, it was nothing that required an ice scraper. When I bought the new car this year, I did not equip it with any winter car equipment because I was not intending on needing any. Damn you global warming, damn you!
I am perfectly aware that anyone who is not living in California right now likely has temperatures well below what we have. If you have not been in temperatures like this for years and years though (like me), it throws you a bit. I have a winter coat, but I have not worn it since I lived in New Jersey. Before that, I was in college! I am certainly not alone in feeling it is cold here. Cities around northern California have opened up warming centers where people can spend the night if they are too cold or do not have heat. I was not kidding people, Californians take their freezing temperatures seriously.
All I have to say is, come back warm weather, come back. We miss you.
So 2007 has arrived. And all the way from China, so has my couch!
After hearing horror stories of thirty to forty percent of furniture arriving damaged, I vowed I would remain patient and not get my hopes up. The sectional arrived just before Christmas on the slow boat from China and remarkably, it is beautiful, well made, and does not have a scratch on it. So Santa came a little early to San Leandro this year. Not having a couch for six months certainly makes me appreciate my couch all the more. I still have a lot to do in the loft, bookshelves and getting things sorted out are high on the list. It is starting to come together though, piece by piece.
The holidays always bring forth reflection on family. Who is in your family? Where are you going for the holidays? Are you going to be alone on Christmas? For the gays, this is always kind of a strange topic because we form families of good friends and people that support us. We don't biologically reproduce and deal with all of the traditions and headaches of hiding gifts from the kids, having to get everything ready, keeping the idea of Santa Claus alive for the little ones. My nieces and nephews (who are old enough to know a con when they see it) confronted my sister and her husband this year about who really leaves the presents under the tree. My sister sent an e-mail to us relating the story. It was pretty funny. I was raised as a part of this big, white Catholic family and I was always told that I would have a wife and kids of my own one day. Now, at 33 years old, I realize that I likely will not have children and I do not see myself having a wife (Lord help us all)! So the holidays always bring forth conflicting feelings when I speak with my family because everything they are discussing is family related and they speak to me with a sense of pity. "Well, don't you wish you were going to be here with us over Christmas? Don't you have anyplace to go?" I can answer both questions quickly. 1. Do I wish to fly from a non-snowy environment to a snow engulfed mountain cabin where my cell phone does not work and 30 family members are crowded into a 3 bedroom house where I would be sleeping on an air mattress? Hmm... Tough one, but no. 2. As a matter of fact, on Christmas Eve, I had a lovely dinner with friends. On Christmas Day, I slept in until 2:30 PM, watched a couple of movies, and then headed to work where I made double time and a half for working Christmas. Yeah, I did have someplace to go. All the way to the bank. As I have mentioned before, I love my family very much -- in limited doses.
So I am very much looking forward to the coming year. I have made a good list of achievable resolutions, I started making plans for some exciting trips later on this year, I recently got fitted for some Invisalign braces to straighten out my teeth before I turn into Ugly Betty, and I have been immensely enjoying my work lately. I am very busy, but I am starting to see the fruits of my hard labor. I transition into working overnights in a few weeks, so this will present some new and interesting challenges as well as some new co-workers. I am working with a great shift of people currently though, so I will miss cutting it up with them everyday.
I hope you all survived the holidays in peace. Cuidate.
