I don’t appear to be doing too well on the daily part of this journal. Interesting how I can become so caught up in finding approval and validation from outside myself that I actually end up sacrificing myself. Extremely strange dream. For the last year or so, I have had a thread pop up in my dreams: I’m in high school, and I know I have this English class, but I go so infrequently I can’t remember when the class meets or if anything is due. Somehow, this has only been mildly concerning. Last night, I dreamt I ran into …
Recently finished reading A Child’s Book Of True Crime by Chloe Hooper. Will likely put it on my list of books to read again; the presentation of the narrative is delightfully convoluted, and now that I know the story, I’m curious to go back and pick apart the structure. I have the distinct impression that the author has several things to say about growing up, the transition between college life and the working world, naivety, adultery, jealousy, parenting. It’s just that on the first time through, I was too busy trying to figure out the murder. Workload has been psychotic. …
Enjoying a sleepy Sunday. . . Hosted a party last night, our first since our housewarming party a year ago. We’ve met some wonderful new people since then, and it was great fun to mix them in with the people we’ve known for years. Haven’t yet decided whether it was the layout and organization of our kitchen/bar area that accounted for the high volume of cocktails (the beer was in the fridge, so maybe it wasn’t obvious we had any) or if L.A. people drink more mixed drinks than San Francisco people. Have learned that “Snickerdoodle” does not appear in …
The point, of course, is to say something, hopefully on a regular basis. Ian has a sort of metaphor about dishes: you empty the dish-drainer to make room for the dishes you’re about to wash, and you wash those dishes to make room for the ones you’re about to get dirty. It’s about preparing a space, making a vacuum so that I have something to fill. It’s not just a way of trying to get me to write more, more regularly, more richly, more everything. I’m too prone to get caught up in work to the point that nothing else …
“Ba ba ba ba-pa-bum.” We saw Episode II when it arrived in theaters. Not to go would have been pop culture suicide, willfully ignoring the source of the myriad references and comparisons that will be made over the next three years. Not to mention that it will be important to be able to say “I was there” when the mythos machine, sometime in the next twenty years, catches up with Lucas’ current work. Besides, seeing the movie is like voting: participation gives you the right to complain. And complain we did, the half-dozen of us who attended the 10:00 a.m. …
“Explain this to me.” Well, folks, here we are at the close of another year. The last time I sat down to write the Annual Letter, the result ended up looking a bit like a miniature travelogue. We’d been here and there, done this and that. (And for those of you who are wondering, yes, I am *still* working on the Journal.) So, what did we do to top last year? We stayed home. I mean, really, how do you top two continents, seven countries, and a castle? Never fear, it wasn’t all thumb-twiddling and basket-weaving. Among the Cool Things …