Links and Tips

Here are some links:

Evany linked to Julia Sweeney's blog recently, and I have now read her archives in their entirety. She is a wonderful writer. I love what she has to say. Her writing is brilliant and funny and full of science and pop culture and ideas about the universe and being a performer and a mom. I can't wait to get her new CD, Letting Go of God. I am in love with her.

My other favorite new (to me) site is Andrea's, which absolutely gives me chills with its beauty and wisdom.

Tsotsi is a pretty good movie (it won the best foreign language film Oscar this year), but I've decided I can no longer watch Baby In Peril films. I become fixated on the baby and can't focus on the idea that the baby is not actually in peril because this is make believe and it's probably a doll or a computer-generated baby half the time anyway. I worry that the baby is hungry, dirty, missing his mom and dad, cold, hot, scared, or all of the above. It's too much to take. And I don't even have a baby. (I mainly wanted to see this movie because of the awesome speech given when it won the Oscar.)

And this made me teary.

I'm now going to post my tips for the running program I did. This started as an e-mail to a friend who's just starting out. I'm no expert on anything, but this is how I made it through the program.

SHOES: Buy some good shoes. Go to a running store. Like, that only specializes in running shoes and running gear. Tell them what you're doing, and tell them you need them to watch you walk (or even jog around the store, mortifying, I know) in different shoes and tell you what kind you should get. Like, they looked at the shoes I wore in the store and noted what part of the heel was more worn down, that kind of thing. Everyone's feet are different and the way everyone's feet hit the ground = DIFFERENT. This is crucial. I spent something crazy like $150 that day, but I think it was good, because I was like, "Shee-it. I can't quit after spending this kind of dough."

SOCKS: Buy some good socks. I have these in white low-cut. I LOVE THEM. I have sweaty feet normally unless I'm wearing sandal-y shoes, but my feet stay dry as a bone in these.

TIME VS. DISTANCE: I was confused at first, along with many on the Cool Running message boards, because it says "time" or "distance" but the consensus on the boards is that beginners should run for time, not distance, because doing it for distance is just too hard. (In other words, say you're in week 4. And it says to jog 5 minutues OR 1/2 mile. I jogged 5 minutes. Which is way, way less than 1/2 mile for me. Get it? This is a FINE way to do it.) Even though 30 minutes for me by Week 9 did NOT equal 3.1 miles (5K) (and still, in fact, does not, for that would be about a 10-minute mile, and hello, no), I had no trouble running that distance when the time of the race came. Word on the street is that you don't usually make it to the actual race distance in training and that you just count on adrenaline and excitement to carry you through to that distance on race day. I scoffed at this notion, but apparently it's the truth.

MUSIC: Here's what you need to do: Whether you're running outside or on a treadmill, you need to program songs on your iPod to match the time of the running segments. This is easy to do. When you're in iTunes, right click the song and select "Get Info." You can adjust the start / end time of the song this way. That way, if you need 90 seconds of a song, you can make your song last 90 seconds. THIS IS KEY. Watching your watch or the treadmill for the time segments is NO WAY TO DO THIS. Let your songs keep the time for you; when one ends, you know that the segment is up and it's time to go to the next segment. I picked upbeat tempo songs for jogging and more mellow ones (not, like, BALLADS) for walking. This is the best tip I got of any when I was doing the program. (If you have another kind of mp3 player, you can probably do something similar.) (Shawn sent me this link that gives you a way to make timed playlists, too.)

CHEAT SHEET: I also printed out the instructions for the week on a little index card cut into a tiny square that I could keep in my palm or pocket or on the treadmill to refer to -- I don't have a good memory for things like this. This really helped, especially in the beginning.

SPEED: For the love of all that is holy, go slowly. I still jog at barely above a walk. I'm not kidding. It's the only way if you're a beginner. THE ONLY WAY.

TREADMILL INCLINE: I was instructed to put the treadmill on an incline of 1.0 or so in order for it to simulate running outside. (Apparently the treadmill on zero incline is way too flat / down-sloped to be like the real world.) That way once you get outside you will not go crazy. I did this from the beginning and think it helped.

The key thing for me was taking it one running segment at a time. If I thought ahead to the next one, or to the next day, or to the next week, I wanted to keel over and die. I was like, okay, I can totally make it through 3 minutes. That's just one Kelly Clarkson song. Of course I can!

I'm now doing a one hour running program which will then segue into a half-marathon training program. The only reason I'm even attempting that training is that I hope to just take it one step at a time. I never thought I'd make it through the 5K program, but I did. I hope that this training will work the same way. My favorite song to run to lately is the theme to The Greatest American Hero. I highly recommend it.

Saints

Well. Wow.

If you missed the U2 / Green Day performance at the game or would like to see it again, you can view it here. Awesome.

Caulking Chaos

I watched Six Degrees last week; I won't watch it again. I found it irritating even though I really like Jay Hernandez, Hope Davis, and especially Campbell Scott. Brothers and Sisters didn't do it for me at all, so I'm also scratching that one off the list.

It's strange how little TV I'm watching this season. Studio 60 (I liked it A LOT), Veronica Mars when it starts, Gray's Anatomy, The Office, and Battlestar Galactica when it starts. Oh, and I'm still recording and watching The View every day just because Rosie makes me happy. I've found that watching really good TV makes me much less tolerant of TV that falls short of my judgment of what's excellent. You know? After barreling through the second half of season two of Battlestar, I'm thinking about it so much that last night I dreamt that Lee Adama got onstage drunk and sang "Shiksa Goddess" from The Last Five Years. It's penetrated my psyche in that deep and bizarre a way. (Don't read the rest of this paragraph if you don't want to be spoiled.) There were a few episodes in this batch that I thought were downright lame (especially the one about Apollo and the hooker) (and I wasn't crazy about the one about Scar) (and don't even get me started on my intense dislike of the Apollo / Dualla "relationship"), but there were parts that knocked my socks off. I lay on the couch and wept during the scene described here. Tears dripped off my face onto the throw pillow. It was just one of the finest things I've ever seen. I LOVE THIS SHOW. And I cannot wait for October 6.

I had a lot on my plate this weekend. My boyfriend worked each day, so I vowed to be productive. Friday night, I cleaned my house and went grocery shopping. On Saturday morning, I took my filthy dogs to the vet for a bath, went shopping for do-it-myself supplies, went on my "long" run for the week (38 minutes around the neighborhood), picked up the dogs, and prepared dinner. He arrived, and we went to the coffee shop and had muffins, coffee, a walnut rugelach, and some frozen lemonade and played a game of Scrabble during which he almost broke 400 points and I broke 300, so it was a good game. That night, we ate this pasta and this salad, and YUM. (Note: I made the pasta sauces in advance as suggested; I only used one tablespoon of chile paste in the pasta instead of two and it was still very spicy; I used orange juice concentrate instead of Grand Marnier because a bottle of it costs $35; the salad dressing is extremely thick, but do not be frightened; and I toasted the almonds first because I think that brings out their flavor much more. Both were great recipes, I thought.) We went out to a show that night where there were lots of young manorexic boys with beards and tight t-shirts and ate vanilla ice cream with strawberries and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

On Sunday, I re-caulked my bathtub. Which was my do-it-myself project to end all do-it-myself projects. My old caulk was nothing short of disgusting, and I figured, how hard could it be? I'll tell you how hard it was. It was very fucking hard. The old caulk was misery to scrape off despite using a gel that is erroneously labeled as a caulk "remover" (HA!), my weird carpal tunnely knuckle that had been doing so much better turned the size and color of a plum, and I probably did permanent damage to both the tile and the tub by scraping like a complete out of control lunatic. Once I scraped off all I could scrape (the caulk between the tub and the floor was particularly un-scrape-able because it was all mixed in with the cement grout of the ceramic floor tile -- horrible), I sprayed everything with Tilex, let that set for a while, and scrubbed everything with a toothbrush until I felt like all of my fingers were going to become dislocated. I let that dry for a few hours with a fan and then set forth with the caulking gun, thinking that nothing could be more difficult than the preparation. Right? Wrong. So very wrong.

I wanted only a very small hole in the top of the caulk tube, but I had to keep cutting it bigger and bigger in order to reach the top of the canister so it could be pierced with a nail. Even when using a really long nail, I had to go down so far that my hole, instead of being pencil-sized, was more like dime-sized. Yeah. It was so big that the caulk was flowing out of the tube when I wasn't even squeezing the gun, so I had to hold it between my legs upright and wipe it with a paper towel constantly or it would spew forth like a tube of toothpaste that was being stepped on. So much caulk gooped out when I was dispensing it around the tub that smoothing the line was just ... unholy. Nightmarish. I'm not even sure that I made good seals. I got silicone caulk all over myself, all over the tiles, all over the bathtub. I even got it on my glasses. And I forgot to fill the tub with water, which supposedly you're supposed to do, until I was almost finished. So I just filled it then and hoped for the best. In short, I've decided that time is more valuable than money and that I would have rather paid someone $1,000 to do this job and do it right, and then I could have spent my Sunday sitting at the coffee shop with my new book from the beautiful Grace that I already love instead of undertaking this monstrous project. Do-It-Myself -- I'm over it. Never again. Never again.

I finished All the King's Men, and it's exquisite. (No spoilers to follow.) It's wordy and sometimes rambly and takes a long time to get where it's going, but when it gets there, whoa. It's fantastic. It's strange because once I got really into it, I stopped thinking about how it's based on my state and true history and just got into it as a mighty fine book. This book is as much about ideas as it is about action, and I liked the ideas a lot. Jack Burden can be very annoying, and sometimes you just want to tell him to shut up and get to the point already, but the way he, as a narrator, contemplates life and goodness and sin and the past and the future is sublime. I highly recommend this book. It didn't win the Pulitzer Prize for nothing. (Read what the ever-wise mo pie thought about it here.) (Also spoiler-free.) I haven't seen the movie yet; the reviews have not been promising. Fred Willard, who was Roeper's guest reviewer this week, gave it two thumbs up, though! And if it's okay by Ron Albertson, it's probably okay by me.

(Here's a link to the article in The New Yorker profiling David Milch and featuring quite a bit about his relationship with Robert Penn Warren. In it, Milch says, "Mr. Warren spread out pretty much all the literary artifacts of American culture for me to study, as part of my working for him on that history of American literature. And in that I found the refraction, the perspective that I needed, to give me access to play the cards that I'd been dealt." Fascinating! Fascinating.)

As for running, I've come to my senses and have decided to forego training for a marathon and train for a half-marathon instead, along with a few friends. It still seems like an impossible distance for me right now, but it seems less impossible than a marathon would be. As my sister said wisely, half-marathon training doesn't take over your whole life like marathon training does, and the distance is a great achievement while still being short enough that it does not make you feel like dying when you are doing it. And I'm all for that. So ... I'm going to finish up one-hour-runner (I'm starting week 6 now) and then figure out when I should start officially training for the half-marathon. Woo! My mom, as she did when I told her I was training for a 5K, sort of laughed disbelievingly, like she was humoring me, like, "...okay. Good luck with that." Not in a mean way, just in an "I'm so sure, I'll believe it when I see it, for I know you, my lazy child," sort of a way. But I will show her! I will. I will show everyone. Most of all me.

Puppies and Plans

Puppy!
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

My neighbors got a puppy. She was really sweet. Then they got another puppy! And shockingly, even Daisy can't hate them. Zuko loves them so much he wants to adopt them. They touch noses across the picturesque chain-link fence. This morning, they were shaking like crazy. It was cooler than it's been in ages, and I wonder if puppies just shake or if they were really suffering. I hope they were okay; I wanted to scoop them up and hold them inside my t-shirt. I want to lie down on the grass and let the puppies run all over me. One puppy = cute. Two puppies = make me want to die with the cuteness. The cuteness exponentially multiplies. Even when they squeal like lunatics, I just want to writhe around with them and squeal myself. I've never had my own puppy; I never want my own puppy. But Other People's Puppies + Me = True Love.

One puppy!

Two puppies!

Pamie's awesome marathon story is making me want to (and foolishly enterain the notion that I could) train to run a marathon. I even rashly ordered the book she linked to. I just want to check it out and see if it inspires me. I mean, I can barely run three miles. But then, a few months ago, I could barely run for ten seconds. Who knows? Something inside me feels like setting a totally insane goal and then working to reach it might be sort of fun. Torturous and painful and possibly dangerous and crazy-making, but also fun.

My sister ran the Chicago Marathon a few years ago. She got blisters the size of small potatoes on the arches of her feet because her insoles shifted slightly when she was running. She still finished. She took a picture of the potato blisters when she was done and displayed it in her room. Awesome. My sister is totally awesome.

The thing is, though, I don't even like running all that much. I like listening to the music I run with, and if I'm outside, I like looking at trees and flowers and stuff, but the running? I like it not so much. I only do it because of how I feel when I'm done, which is great. I think you probably have to like running a hell of a lot more than I do to train for a marathon. I think you probably also cannot like to spend so much time doing things like watching TV and eating slices of American cheese melted on tortillas and fudge pops. Because that is time you will have to spend running. You have to spend time running instead of practically everything else in life. But I feel like I need a focus. Something to work for. Something that would be good for my body and my mind. If not this, because the odds are lousy, I get that, then something else.

I'm in vacation fantasy mode today. We're thinking possibly Mexico or some place in Central America. Any suggestions?

Parks and Pie

Yellow bells
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Having now finished The Comeback, I can say without reservation that there must have been no better female performance, comic or otherwise, than Lisa Kudrow's on this show last season, and it is making me sit here and fume inwardly that she did not win every possible award for her brilliance. After getting over my initial discomfort both because of and on behalf of the lead character, much like I had to do with the BBC's The Office before falling head over heels in love with it, I came to really love this show. I grimaced, I put my hands over my face, I teared up, and I laughed belly laughs on multiple occasions. I definitely think it's worth it to stick with this show through the end, and I totally recommend it, if only to witness the teeth-gritting but somehow loving patience of Valerie's husband, the unforgettable punch in the gut, and Valerie's rendition of "I Will Survive," which made me laugh almost as hard as my original viewing of "Free Love on the Freelove Freeway" when Gareth and then Tim started doing their back-up harmonies (which you can watch here).

The weekend started Friday evening. Mellow. We ate sushi. There is something comforting in the predictable tastiness of a crunchy roll and a dumpling dipped in ponzu sauce.

We woke up early on Saturday morning. He headed to work, and I headed to the park to do my "long" run for the week -- 35 minutes. I hadn't been to this park in a long time. We took a walk in it on one of our first dates. Told some of our sad stories. My sister used to run in this park, so I kind of went in her honor. Even that early in the morning, the park was full of people. People running, people walking, people on roller skates, and people on bikes. Pushing babies in strollers, walking dogs. Sometimes I would get tired and want to quit running and then I'd come up on an old lady in a sun visor walking with a cane and I'd force myself to keep going. I walked to my car when cooling down and grabbed a bottle of water and my camera and walked around the park a little bit, panting and taking some pictures. It it a beautiful place.

Once the sweat had sufficiently dried (I know, gross), I went to the vet to buy his cat her food and to the bookstore to buy us each a copy of All the King's Men. I then went to the coffee shop and settled in with a vanilla iced coffee. I went upstairs where there weren't many people so I wouldn't stink up the joint too much. It's a highly cool building, and I like it very much even though the staff typically appears unshowered on the whole.

I read for a little while while a man behind me said, "Is that an old Mac or a new Mac? Is that an old Mac or a new Mac? Is that an old Mac or a new Mac?" I thought he must be on his cell phone with a bad connection, but finally I turned around when he said loudly, "EXCUSE ME MISS IS THAT AN OLD MAC OR A NEW MAC?" I said, "Are you talking to me?" He said yes. I said, "Uh, I got it in December, so I guess it's ... new?" (Showing what a dumbass I am about computers.) He assured me that it's not new, something about a processor, blah blah, then engaged me in a conversation about how I like my iBook and I said I love it and he said he's been using Macs since 1989. I just nodded and turned back to my coffee, and he said, "Spread the word!" So I guess he is just a major Mac lover or some kind of viral marketing operative sent to coffee houses by Apple. Who knows? Who knows.

Eventually we were reunited and headed to a family gathering at my cousin's apartment, where we ate Moroccan stew and lots of pie.

We tried to go to roller derby, but it was sold out, so we went to see The Last Kiss, bile about which I have already spewed.

On Sunday morning, we walked to the market for a newspaper and breakfast and once we parted ways, I headed home to go grocery shopping for the week, do two loads of laundry, and get my life in order. I'm looking forward to re-reading All the King's Men. I haven't read it since junior year of high school, when I did my big final paper in English on alienation and self-discovery in the novel. I don't remember it very well, and I guess that's okay considering that it was fourteen years ago. I know that my grandmother loved Robert Penn Warren a lot, and that's enough to make me want to love him, too.

(More park photos are here.)

The Last Puke

I'm trying to think of the words I could use to convey how much I hated The Last Kiss. I'm not sure it's possible.

This entire entry is full of spoilers.

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I guess I'll start with what I didn't hate about it. Blythe Danner was great. Luminous, even. Loved her. Jacinda Barrett was surprisingly fantastic. I mean, FANTASTIC. She cried and raged so well. She impressed me. And Tom Wilkinson can do no wrong, ever, in my opinion.

I think that overall I found Zach Braff's character so lame, pathetic, and unredeemable that I couldn't see much past it. Kind of like with L'Enfant. Sure, Zach Braff didn't sell his baby, but he was still a first-class prick.

I get that he was freaking out about the future. I get that an unplanned pregnancy and turning thirty could cause some freak-outs within. But I can't understand how I, as a viewer and as a woman, am supposed to be able to stomach his repeated lying, his premeditated deception, and his after-the-fact continuing to lie until flat-out busted -- and I certainly can't reckon how we are supposed to look back and consider it forgivable that he actually had the good sense to go home before screwing Rachel Bilson, and then, when caught by his nice, pretty, pregnant girlfriend who was understandably and justifiably upset that he completely and totally lied to her face and tried to get his friends to lie for him and fully went on a date with and made out with another woman, and a hot college student at that, he got so angry at her in response to HER anger (unfairly, immaturely, and ridiculously) and at what he, like a hateful and condescending bastard, deemed her "over-reaction," that he then returned to said hot college student's dorm room and fucked her brains out, and then after realizing that she was, while hot, practically a teen, and he was an idiot, and lo, he wanted to spend the rest of his life with his beautiful, kind, pregnant, educated girlfriend of three years with whom he had a pretty great life -- what? We're supposed to believe that a few days of curling up on the porch in the rain qualifies as remorse and a basis for forgiveness? Oh, give me a big fat fucking break! I don't buy it. I don't think even Zach Braff as an actor bought it, so phoned in was his performance.

I felt so satisfied and like all was right with the world when she told him through the door that she didn't think she could forgive him. I thought, well, of course not. He was a complete clown and jackass and his epiphany was one that could have been reached by an utter imbecile. Hmmm...hot, young, semi-vapid college student with whom I have nothing in common whom I already had sex with so there's really nothing else to gain from that idiocy or lovely girlfriend whom I love who by the way is having my kid? Are we supposed to think that's truly a decision he had to dig down deep to make? It's the biggest "duh" I've ever heard of, and if we're supposed to find him commendable for coming to that obvious and should-not-have-had-to-lie-like-a-rug-and-fuck-the-20-year-old-to-reach-it conclusion, well, this movie can vigorously and enthusiastically suck it.

I really wanted to like this movie. The soundtrack is good. As I mentioned, Blythe and Jacinda and Tom Wilkinson were very good, and the guys who played his friends, especially Casey Affleck (pointless though their parts might have been, overall), were good. But ugh. I was growing more and more enraged as my boyfriend and I discussed it when it was over and I was like, "What kind of message does this send to men and women? That men can feel afraid of commitment, cheat with prepubescent hussies, realize they've got it made at home AFTER they've gotten their jollies out in the vagina of someone like Summer from The O.C. and blasted their partner's hopes, dreams, heart, and trust to smithereens in the process, and then be taken back because it's acceptable as a full-grown adult to behave in this reprehensible, dog-like way because they're 'scared'? What? What? This offends me as a woman!" He said I can't act like this movie was made to send such sociological messages and that it was just meant to be entertaining, but it wasn't entertaining to me. It just made me angry and a little bit sick. I can't recommend it because when that door swung open in the end, I wanted to barf inside my popcorn bag. And had I had a popcorn bag, I just might have done so.

Edited to add: I just read my first review of the movie, this one, and, as usual: Amen, Pajiba. Amen.

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Hump Day

Incorrigible
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Computer question: I got Shiny, my iBook, in December. Pretty much every time I use it, it goes in and out of a blue screen. It's only for a split second, and then it goes back to whatever it was doing, but I'm wondering if I should be concerned about this. I love Shiny and will be very sad if Shiny breaks on me.

Sometimes I am astonished that I am a 31-year-old lifelong reader, English major, and former English teacher who has made it this far in life without knowing what so many words mean. My sister and I were talking about the word "incorrigible" recently. We decided we don't really ever use it or have a good concept of what it means. All we know is that Kurt told Maria that he was incorrigible and when he asked her, "What's 'incorrigible'?" she said, "I think it means that you want to be treated like a boy." So my friend was telling me the other day about her 2.5-year-old daughter is "incorrigible," I think particularly in terms of potty-training. And I asked her what it meant, and she explained, but then she checked the dictionary just to be sure. It means "bad beyond correction or reform; impervious to constraints or punishment; willful; unruly; uncontrollable; firmly fixed." So we then discussed the use of the word in terms of Kurt, or, more specifically, in terms of the definition that Maria gave Kurt. What did that mean, exactly, when she said she thinks it just means he wants to be treated like a boy? Was she joking with him? Was she trying to spare him the negative connotations of the word? Then I talked to my sister about it, and she said maybe Maria was making a joke about men and boys. And how they can be, in general, incorrigible. So who knows? Who knows what Fraulein Maria meant? Not me.

I went to my boyfriend's first gig with his new band. I knew they'd be good, but they were sensational. It was a great turnout for a weeknight, and there were lots of rocker-types there appreciatively banging their heads in the crowd and cheering with great enthusiasm after every song. I even banged my head a little myself. I think it could not have gone better. I'd never really seen him rock out before in the lead singer capacity for a full set, and he was dynamite. I know I don't talk about him in a specific way very often here because he's my man and I like to keep that private, but he really let it rip both vocally and on his guitar. Also, I think you have not really lived until you hear an original rock song with your name in it being performed live for the first time and being blasted out of the speakers it in its full glory. We didn't get home until the middle of the night, I am basically coughing up black tar from the smoke, and my ears will probably be ringing for years due to their bizarrely bionic oversensitivity and the unprecedented rockingoutness of my ear drums, but I don't care. It was awesome.

This is one of the best online journals I've ever come across in a lot of years of reading online journals. I've been spending an obscene amount of time reading her archives. (Thanks to Amalah for the heads-up.)

Shelley has ordered me to watch Pretty in Pink again. She said, "In that movie, James Spader is so hot and hateable. He's even more hot and hateable than Hardy-Jenns-with-Two-Ns." We sat for a moment in silence as we realized in simultaneous horror that Some Kind of Wonderful didn't even make the list. Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. WRONG.

The only things I care about in this life are me,
my drums, and you.

A Book List

Look Through My Window
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

1. A book that changed your life.

B Is for Betsy, the first book I remember checking out from the library. And Madeleine Lengle's whole Murry family quartet certainly blew my mind when I was younger and made me see the universe in a whole new way.

2. A book you've read more than once.

Look Through My Window by Jean Little. This was one of my favorite books when I was a little girl, and I love it completely still. My cover is tattered and torn, as you can see in the photo above.

3. A book you'd want on a desert island.

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. It's a book about overcoming struggles and not always knowing the answers, which I suspect are concepts I'd embrace if stranded on a desert island, and it would make me laugh.

4. A book that made you giddy.

When I read Bridget Jones's Diary in my friend's attic in Florence, Italy, in the spring of 1998, it made me guffaw in a way that few books had before or have since. I laughed until I cried; I profoundly identified. Judge me if you must.

5. A book you wish had been written.

For forever and a day, I wished that Ellen Emerson White would write a new book about the Meg, the president's daughter, and the rest of the Powers family. This was my number one wish book. And now she has! It's called Long May She Reign. And it's coming out next year. We've even corresponded a bit about it. So I consider this wish fulfilled in a big-time way. Book miracles do happen, people.

6. A book that wracked you with sobs.

The Brothers K by David James Duncan. I cried during both readings of this book, but most memorably on an airplane when finishing it last year. As reported before, I soaked cocktail napkin after cocktail napkin with my tears. I cried loudly enough that those sitting around me noticed and shot me concerned and possibly annoyed glances. I could not hold them in, the sobs. My sister's had trouble getting through this book. Her complaint is that "nothing happens." I keep telling her to keep going, keep going, because I want her to feel how I feel in the last two-thirds of the book when rescues are being staged, loves are being reunited, and people are saying goodbye. I want her to feel that heart-combusting feeling of grief and joy and anguish and hope. Like this part (I'm trying to put it in white font so you have to scroll over it to see the text so I don't spoil anything for those who haven't read it):

I refuse to resort to Uppercase here. But you hear me. And I feel you. I mean you, the who or whatever you are, being or nonbeing, that somehow comes to us and somehow consoles us. I don't know your name. I don't understand you. I don't know how to address you. I don't like people who think they do. But it's you alone, I begin to feel, who sends me this woman's love and our baby, and this new hope and stupid gratitude, even as my father goes down and my stupid brother lies broken. So:
O thing that consoles.
How clumsily I thank you.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold also left me a sobbing mess. I remember finishing it on my couch during the summer of 2002 and burying my face in the cushions and wailing somewhat inconsolably.

This is the paragraph that did me in (scroll over the text to read it):

These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections -- sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent -- that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable point in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.

God, that killed me.

I've certainly wept or had tears fill my eyes and slide down my face while reading countless other books, but those are the two from recent years that I recall actually made me sob.

When I was young, I bawled like a baby in one of the old green velvet chairs at my parents' house (the ones we were NOT allowed to eat or drink while sitting in upon pain of death but where I spent most of my time reading, which might explain why I was such a skinny child) when finishing The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton for the first time. And don't even get me started on my childhood reaction to the end of Wilson Rawls' Where the Red Fern Grows. I can still recite the saddest line from memory, and it still makes me feel like falling to pieces.

7. A book you wish had never been written.

This is a tough one. Apparently I was not fond of Bergdorf Blondes.

8. A book you are currently reading.

I just started How to Kill a Rock Star by Tiffanie Debartolo, author of God-Shaped Hole, which, since this is partly a discussion of books that make us cry, I finished in the bathtub. (While crying.)

9. A book you've been meaning to read.

Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert. More than one person has asked me if I've read it or recommended it to me, so I'm taking it as a sign that I need to read it soon.

10. Tag 10.

I'm not really a tagger, but if you make your own list like this, post the link in the comments, because I'd love to read it.

(From Doppelganger.)

Motionless

Subway lines
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

I was driving over some water recently and did what I usually do ... I unlocked my doors. I always unlock my doors. That way, if my car goes over the railing and I end up submerged under the water and the locks malfunction, I'll be able to open my door when the car settles and escape. I've heard conflicting reports about this ... some news show I saw said never to wait for the car to settle and to go ahead and start rolling down the window the moment the car starts going over and swim out before the car has time to settle because by then you'll be dead. But someone who survived going over the railings recently not far from here waited for the car to settle and opened the door and swam to the surface. These are the kinds of thoughts I have while driving over water. I thought to myself that I need to get one of those car escape tools. Then I thought that I want everyone I love to have one, so maybe I should buy all of them one for Christmas. Then I thought about how crazy they'd think I was if I gave them something like that as a gift and what the look on their faces would be when they opened it.

I never delete voicemails. I always save them. I know they eventually get deleted automatically a few days down the line, but I can't bring myself to be the one who deletes the messages because I think about the person who left me the voicemail dying and what it would feel like to know that I erased the chance to hear his or her voice one more time.

Lately I've been trying to mentally compile all of the things I'm afraid of. These are two. Oh, and one more is the overwhelming craving I'm having for candy corn lately, coupled with the strong compulsion I sometimes have to eat raw whole wheat spirelli noodles straight out of the box.

I've decided that Marian Keyes has written her last good book. Years ago, even. Anybody Out There? is not good. It's irritating and way, way too long. Does anyone want it? I'll mail it to you.

I am enjoying the ease of updating this way, but I do miss having "previous entry" and "next entry" links. I want to have them again, but I'm not sure how. If someone knows how to do this, will you please tell me?

Even though I don't enjoy the act of exercising, I'm realizing that I have to keep doing it because it's the only thing that keeps me from hating (a) myself and (b) everyone else in the entire world. I'm not sure that's the best motivation, but it's pretty much the only thing that works for me these days.

I can't stop listening to the song "Paperweight" on the soundtrack to The Last Kiss.

I'm feeling full of anger and sadness today. I'm thinking about the thousands of people who died five years ago and all of the loved ones left behind. I read somewhere that September 11, 2001, brought forth so much goodwill from the rest of the world in how it reached out to us and that we've since squandered that goodwill, and that's the truest and most depressing thing I've thought about in quite some time. How dare we? How dare we. How dare this nation re-elect George W. Bush? I mean, WHAT THE HELL? It makes me cry.

Puke.

And I just read that the Weepies will be opening for the Indigo Girls on tour soon. Nowhere anywhere close to here. Which makes me want to cry some more. Maybe it's selfish and wrong to cry over such things. But missing out on music that fills our hearts and makes us think and imagine? That's something worth crying over in this short damn life, isn't it? Maybe not. But it feels like it. At least right now.

Woke up and wished that I was dead
With an aching in my head
I lay motionless in bed
The night is here and the day is gone
And the world spins madly on

Weekend

Signs of Life
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

It's late on Sunday afternoon. I'm doing laundry and watching The Comeback.

It was a lovely weekend. On Friday night, I arrived at my boyfriend's and was served a kick-ass dinner of pasta and homemade pesto and a salad full of things like sunflower seeds, bell peppers, onions, and dried cranberries and apricots with homemade salad dressing. YUM. For dessert, we had chocolate-covered cherry ice cream. We met one of his co-workers here for a beer, and I realized once again how intolerant I am of smoke. I am an old lady.

On Saturday, we went running around the bayou, and then we went to the library. It's probably the best library in the world. I want to spend more time there.

We also made a brief stop at the book store, which is a very neat place.

Then we had lunch at Babylon. Bread and vegetarian grape leaves and spinach pie. Excellent. We went to the hardware store and here, where I wanted to buy everything in the store, as usual.

We took a nap, went grocery shopping, played Scrabble, and watched Friends with Money. Out of the three movies I've seen by Nicole Holofcener -- this, Walking and Talking, and Lovely and Amazing, this was my least favorite, but it wasn't terrible or anything. It's just strange to slap Jennifer Aniston among Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack, and Frances McDormand and expect her to hold her own. Those three are like three spitting explosions of charisma, and she's like -- not. It had some interesting things to say, I think, and the other three actresses are so strong, but Jennifer Aniston does not do it for me on film. I liked her in The Object of My Affection, but I think that's mainly because Paul Rudd makes everyone in his atmosphere so great.

This morning we went to the market, and I loved the flowers nearby.

On my drive home, I stopped for a frozen Coke and called my friend because I was listening to the Bye Bye Birdie soundtrack and "Honestly Sincere" came on and that obviously merited discussion for the 500th time. I went to the gym and listened to the French Kicks while doing the weight machines. Then I went grocery shopping and came home to try and get my life in order.

Did you know that there are parrots in New Orleans? I never did, until today. There they were, perched on top of the telephone pole by my boyfriend's house, chirping away or making whatever sounds that parrots make. It was pretty stunning to see big green parrots hanging out on a telephone pole in the middle of a city.

Is it wrong that I am insanely excited about the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy?

50 "Best" High School Movies

Not a stalker.
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Entertainment Weekly has posted its list of the 50 best high school movies. Here's my take on the choices.

50. Splendor in the Grass ~ 1961

I might need to watch this one again, because I don't think I got through it the first time. I think part of it was that my young girl's heart could not bear seeing Natalie Wood as anyone but Maria in West Side Story. I was like, what do you mean she's not Puerto Rican?

49. Sixteen Candles ~ 1984

Its placement as #49th on this list is preposterous. This movie is great not so much because of the Samantha / Jake Ryan story but because of all of the secondary characters. Come on. The grandparents? Long Duck Dong? I mean, "thanks for lending me the donger"? It doesn't get much better than that.

48. Just One of the Guys ~ 1985

I've only seen parts of this movie. It never really did it for me.

47. Napoleon Dynamite ~ 2004

I've only seen this once, in the theater, and I did laugh very hard. However, I didn't anticipate the pop culture phenomenon this movie would become, and I think its overexposure all over the internet and strange tie-ins you can still buy at places like Spencer's Gifts kind of ruin this movie for me in retrospect. Tina Majorino is the best thing in the movie. She usually is.

46. Flirting ~ 1992

I've never seen this.

45. My Bodyguard ~ 1980

I've never seen this.

44. Can't Hardly Wait ~ 1998

This is a pretty good movie. I actually said to my boyfriend the other day, "Why y'all gotta waste my flava? Damn!" (And sounded quite stupid doing so.) Jennifer Love Hewitt and the fact that the title doesn't work grammatically notwithstanding, some of the performances in this film are fantastic, especially those of Lauren Ambrose, Seth Green, Ethan Embry (who will always be Mark in Empire Records to me) (SPEAKING OF, WHERE IS EMPIRE RECORDS ON THIS LIST? TRAVESTY!), and Charlie "I Can't Feel My Legs" Korsmo.

43. Stand and Deliver ~ 1988

Uniformly excellent and one of the many movies about teachers that completely warped my perception of how I'd be as one. Mr. Escalante is of course now Commander Adama, so, rock.

42. Fame ~ 1980

SO GOOD. It took me a while to realize that the bald, mean Dr. Romano on ER was the very curly-topped, very sensitive and artistic Montgomery. And that Doris ended up being Sharon in Grease 2. Anyway, this movie is fantastic and dark and inspiring and cheesy and the scene when they all start DANCING IN THE STREET to Bruno's song makes me want to scream. It's that awesome. Plus, Leroy.

41. Can't Buy Me Love ~ 1987

This movie would be much, much, much closer to the top of my list. This was an oft-watched classic at our house. I still know much of it by heart. All the way down the line, it is wonderful. Sometimes it's hard for me to reconcile that Ronald Miller is now McDreamy. I mean, Ronald Miller would never have grown up and cheated on Cindy Mancini, no matter what. And he never would have turned around and broken Meredith's heart and then jerk her around season after season. He was a jerk for a while in the movie, but clearly he reformed in time to deliver the fucking awesome "Cools, nerds, your side, my side. Man, it's all bullshit. It's just tough enough to be yourself" speech at lunch. Anyway. I love this movie.

40. Risky Business ~ 1983

This movie has never done it for me, and I think today I would go blind if forced to behold Tom Cruise in his underpants.

39. The Virgin Suicides ~ 2000

I didn't like this movie. I guess I am not deep enough.

38. Bye Bye Birdie ~ 1963

One of my most beloved films of all time. As a child, I think I sincerely believed I would get to grow up and look like Ann-Margret in that pink outfit. I did not. And Conrad Birdie was a sleaze and Hugo was an idiot, but it's so beautifully done, and every single adult is perfect -- Paul Lynde? Dick Van Dyke? Janet Leigh? Maureen Stapleton? It was a dream cast. This movie is dreamy. Everyone should watch it.

37. Friday Night Lights ~ 2004

I ended up fast-forwarding a lot of this movie even though I really wanted to like it, mostly because it started the kid from Sling Blade all grown up.

36. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ~ 2005

I don't know that I'd exactly call this a teen movie. I don't know. I've never been too fond of the movies, honestly. I think Harry was miscast, and I've never quite gotten over that.

35. Brick ~ 2006

HATED IT. A lot.

34. Get Real ~ 1999

I've never seen or even heard of this.

33. Hoop Dreams ~ 1994

I've never seen this, but I'd like to.

32. Scream ~ 1996

Scream was good. They should have stopped with the first one. And all of its imitations suck. You can't often effectively imitate an imitator, you know?

31. The Karate Kid ~ 1984

Sigh. What's not to love about this movie? Nothing, that's what. I still get goosebumps when Elisabeth Shue runs to Daniel in her skirt and knee socks at the end. And I still feel intense dislike for Johnny and fucking Sensei. WHAT assholes. This is one of the best underdog stories ever. Love, love, love.

30. Bring It On ~ 2000

It's easy to dismiss this movie as stupid until you've seen it. It's really good. Silly, but smart at the same time, sort of like Can't Hardly Wait. (But much better.) Great casting.

29. Gregory's Girl ~ 1982

I've never seen this.

28. Back to the Future ~ 1985

It seems very wrong to just slap this movie in the middle of this list. We loved this movie so much when we were kids, especially my sister. And I have distinct memories of Shelley and I saying "1.21 GIGAWATTS!?! 1.21 gigawatts!" to each other on a regular basis.

27. To Sir, With Love ~ 1967

See #43. Damn Sidney Poitier for making me think I could change lives like he did. Damn him!

26. Pretty in Pink ~ 1986

Well. I never had super-strong feelings for this one. I've seen it a billion times, surely. But I could never really get worked up into much of a froth about the Blane vs. Duckie debate. I thought that she and Duckie were better off as friends, and I also thought that Blane was just about the wimpiest, lamest "heartthrob" ever put on film. And the stuff about her parents was just highly depressing. And I thought her prom dress was very ugly. The end. Annie Potts was terrific, though. They should have made the movie about her.

25. Hoosiers ~ 1986

I've never seen this.

24. Rushmore ~ 1998

I need to watch this again. My primary feeling toward this movie these days is that it's highly overrated.

23. Cooley High ~ 1975

I've never seen this.

22. American Pie ~ 1999

Funny. Gross, but funny.

21. Grease ~ 1978

Please see my thoughts in this entry for my feelings about this movie. This movie needs to be very, very close to the top of this list. Please!

20. Dead Poets Society ~ 1989

I'm starting to get downright indignant toward the rankings on this list. In short, they blow. This movie is basically perfection for me. I don't understand how anyone with a heart and soul cannot love it. I don't care how you feel about Robin Williams. It's wonderful and beautiful and sad and lovely and I showed it to every one of my classes, and they all loved it, too. I seriously could start crying just sitting here thinking about it, so I have to stop. I just looked him up to see what that rat bastard Cameron is up to these days. Apparently he guest-starred on House, which of course stars Robert Sean Leonard, who played the exquisite Neil in this movie. Interesting. I am filling up with rage while recalling the way he spat out, "LET. KEATING. FRY." Hate. I hate him still. But I love all the rest of them. Especially Knox Wimberly/Dan Rydell.

19. The Last Picture Show ~ 1971

I've never seen this.

18. Rock 'n' Roll High School ~ 1979

Never seen it.

17. Peggy Sue Got Married ~ 1986

Never liked it.

16. Lucas ~ 1986

Mortifying. Good. I remember something about a cockroach. Or locusts. Something about bugs. I don't know. I felt sorry for Corey Haim and didn't buy Charlie Sheen as a nice guy, that's for damn sure, even then.

15. Carrie ~ 1976

I've never really seen this, but Sissy Spacek's daughter sings on the soundtrack to The Last Kiss and has a very pretty voice.

14. Donnie Darko ~ 2001

Please. I don't even pretend to have gotten through or understood this movie. Life is too short.

13. High School ~ 1968

I've never seen this.

12. Mean Girls ~ 2004

Very good, but I'm so sure this is ranked so highly. It just came out! Give it a little time and let's see how it ages, okay?

11. Say Anything ~ 1989

If I'd made this list, this would be number one. I know I've read online before that some people think Lloyd Dobler is a stalker and that this is a bad movie, but I don't know how they can say that if they've actually seen it. Lloyd is not a stalker. What does he do that is stalkery? Nothing. To say that someone is a stalker is to say that there is something menacing or unstable about him or that he is threatening in some way. And I'm so sure. Lloyd? PLEASE. Diane Court is still in love with Lloyd utterly and completely and breaks up with him about as convincingly as -- I don't know -- someone who obviously doesn't want to break up with anybody. That he shows up at her house with the radio might be unrealistic and out of character for any teenage male who'd probably never come up with an idea so awesome, but I'd hardly call him a stalker. I just can't bear to have anyone say anything negative about this movie. La la la. Don't want to hear it. I love it completely. If there is anything negative to be said, it's that Lloyd Dobler is an ideal that doesn't exist in real life. And no teenage girl will ever meet a teenage boy who is as wonderful as he is. And that is pretty disappointing to teenage girls. I know, having been one.

10. Ferris Bueller's Day Off ~ 1986

Twenty years. This movie is twenty years old. It is still in a class of its own, I think.

9. Election ~ 1999

I think I'm just going to have to let go of the rankings or I am going to keep getting more and more livid. You've got two Matthew Broderick films back-to-back on the list, though, and HELLO, which is the more beloved and classic film? Not this one. This movie is well made but it's just disturbing and Tracy Flick is wretched. Matthew Broderick is wretched. It made me feel gross.

8. Boyz in the Hood ~ 1991

I've never seen it.

7. Clueless ~ 1995

This is definitely it its rightful place in the top ten. It's still totally in the lexicon of, I don't know, my universe and that of my friends. It's brilliant and hilarious and touching and absurd all at the same time. This is a great movie.

6. American Graffiti ~ 1973

I've never see this. I know, I know.

5. Heathers ~ 1989

I think this belongs here on the list. Bitterly funny and bitterly cruel.

4. Rebel Without A Cause ~ 1955

I've seen this, but I never really got very into it.

3. Dazed and Confused ~ 1993

Amen. I've seen this movie so many times at this point that I'm not sure it's normal. It's a movie about seniors in high school that came out the year I was a senior in high school, so it always rang very true to me even though it was set in 1976. I saw in the characters people I knew in real life. Especially Slater. My friends and I sure hung out with a lot of Slaters back then. Why, I do not know.

2. Fast Times at Ridgemont High ~ 1982

I must not have been allowed to watch this or something because it's never really been on my radar.

1. The Breakfast Club ~ 1985

I can't say I disagree with its place as number one even though I think Say Anything would be there on my own personal list. This is by far the best of the John Hughes movies. Not one of the actors isn't perfect for his or her role. Pretty much every line in this movie hit home for me when I first saw it and still does today. And Ally Sheedy's declaration of "when you grow up, your heart dies," is something I've been fighting against since the moment I heard her say it. That said, Claire is still annoying, and it's very unsettling as a young person to be so turned on by someone like John Bender who is clearly every teen girl's nightmare. GOD, being a teenager is confusing. This movie really captures that. I loved it then, and I love it now.

New Beginning

The lantana that ate the neighborhood
Originally uploaded by Elizalou.

Ah, yes. It was only a matter of time. My songs were "I Believe in a Thing Called Love," "Fame," "Pieces of Me," and "It's the End of the World as We Know It." Oddly, "Pieces of Me" was definitely the hardest. I can see why this game is like crack to many people. You don't really have to be able to keep up with the verses in the REM song as far as the words go -- as long as you can maintain the sort of monotone pitch.

I'm caught up on Battlestar Galactica. Now I'll just need to watch Season 2.5 when it comes out in two weeks. I am really sort of baffled by my love for this show. Sometimes it seems very stupid, but sometimes it's really great. Whoever cast Olmos & McDonnell is a genius. They are so excellent, especially McDonnell. She is brilliant. Sometimes watching this show gives me squeezing sensations in my chest. I even get anxious when bad things happen to characters I don't like. Or characters I shouldn't like -- but somehow I do. I like all of the tension -- civil government vs. the military, faith vs. science. This show makes my head hurt, but in a good way.

I just tried to watch about five minutes of Nip/Tuck, and it made me so uneasy that I had to turn it off. I don't know why it shocks me so much to see such graphic sex scenes on regular old TV, but it does. I flipped to TBS instead and watched the end of a Sex & the City episode I've seen a million times (the one where Carrie kisses Alanis). I just can't watch Nip/Tuck. It upsets me. I know that Rosie O'Donnell is guesting on it soon, but I don't think I can watch it even for her.

Speaking of Rosie, I've enjoyed her on The View this week. It's strange to see her in the role of talk show host in a format that's so different from how hers was. But she looks great. She looks happy.

This week I've gone to a Habitat meeting and officially started the hour running program. First I had to build myself back up to thirty minutes over the last two weeks. After the rubber band holding my hair in a ponytail popped open and flew off and I had to clumsily pull my hair back with a bandana, I made it through the first night of the program by the grace of Big Brother on the gym TV and good old "American Idiot."

Here's a link to an animal rescue organization sent to me by a reader who's a displaced New Orleanian. She says they're doing great work. Check it out.

I've started watching The Comeback. Lisa Kudrow was robbed of the Emmy this year. That said, it makes me want to crawl under the couch and die because it's so mortifying. I can see why it was cancelled -- it's because no one can stand to be that uncomfortable watching something for any long period of time. It's hilarious, but it's in a heartbreaking way because it's so painful to watch -- you just want to die a thousand deaths for her character with pretty much every passing moment.

I'm beginning this attempt to write online in a different format. I felt I could no longer be a slave to the ancient ways. It's nothing too pretty, but I tried to make it as similar to my old look as possible because that look is comfortable and familiar to me. I still know nothing of feeds or some of the other newfangled trends. I'm sure I'll have to tool around with things some more. Also, I'm doing this on my iBook at home, so it might look insane in some browers, and I don't have a clue. I have no idea if I'll stick with this, as it makes me feel vaguely nauseated to abandon the old-school format, but I'm giving it a go because it's both easy and free -- and for the sake of trying to leap (at least somewhat) into modern times. Don't hate me.