Back from the beyond
Good news
My car, or as my friend Mike VS refers to it, “the expensive German touring sedan,” is officially paid off as of this afternoon. Woo hoo! Of course, you could say the mortgage company now owns the car, since I paid it off with refinanced mortgage money, but let me have my delusions, OK? 🙂
Brothers
Looking at the photo of my condo for the first time, David asked about the pictures hanging above the plant.
They’re a set of photos my father took of me and my brothers. They were obviously meant as a set, since they were taken at the same spot in the house at the same time of the day. So I had them framed. I wish I could ask my father, why didn’t you let me get dressed? Instead, I look like some sort of miniature Truman Capote in my glasses and bathrobe.
Despite my embarrassment over how I look, I still love the pictures. So I took a closeup of the frame for you all to see.
Lost in Translation
This isn’t a movie, it’s an experience.
A wry, sweetly sad Bill Murray and a luminous Scarlett Johansson wander through the Tokyo streets, seeing in each other a connection that helps them navigate waters they barely understand. There’s so little dialogue, it’s like a modern-day silent movie shot in English – which is perfect in a story about people who don’t speak the language, both literally and figuratively. Director Sofia Coppola keeps the dreamy atmosphere going throughout, illuminating Murray and Johansson’s characters while still keeping some things tantalizingly out of reach.
Highly recommended.
Listening to Condoleezza Rice’s quavery voice this morning on “Meet the Press,” trying to dance around the latest group of serious charges leveled against the administration, I allowed myself a glimmer of hope that things will continue to get worse for them. But they’ve wriggled out from under so much, why should this time be any different?
Jesse: How are you?
Me: Good!
Jesse: ….
Jesse: Huh. You usually say, “I’ve been better” or “OK.”
Me: Well, I’m trying that “Act as if” thing.
The simple truth is, I haven’t felt like myself for going on two years now, and I’m sick of it. If you asked me what the problem was I couldn’t tell you. I don’t think I’m depressed, exactly, but I’ve had specific bouts of panic and anxiety. Other than that, though, it just feels like it’s not me living in my head. Or at least, not the me I’m used to. Everything seems up in the air, topsy-turvy.
For all my problems in the past, I never felt anything other than *stable*. Now instability is the order of every day. It doesn’t help that my father was exactly my age when he became ill with manic depression, an illness he struggled with the rest of his life. But that’s a perfect example of how weird things are – the old me wouldn’t have put any significance on an anniversary like that.
John would always tease me when I would write something elliptical on the weblog about a problem I was having, without spelling out what was wrong. (For example, I could have just left the exchange at the beginning stand as is. Which is what I intended to do, at first.) Well, in this case the problem is I don’t know what the problem is.
A related story
My brother Matt and I were driving to Hinsdale together for some holiday. We were laughing about whenever you entered my grandmother’s house, she would be sitting in the library. You would come in, give her a kiss, and brightly say, “How are you, Didi?” And she would say, without fail in that gravelly voice of hers, “Lousy.”
So my brother bet me $5 that we would walk in the house, ask Didi how she was, and she would reply “Lousy.” I thought, well, I’ll probably lose the bet, but it’ll be funny to see if she’s that predictable. So we walk in, and Matt says, “How are you, Didi?”
“Terrible,” she replied.
Best $5 I ever won.
OK, back to our regularly scheduled programming. I wonder how Amy Yasbeck is doing?
Quote of the Day
“No matter how cynical I get, I can’t keep up.”
-Lily Tomlin
The CIA is asking for an investigation into allegations that the White House blew the cover of one of its agents. (I won’t repeat the details of the case here – it’s all in the link.)
Running the investigation will be Attorney General John Ashcroft, who got his most recent job from the Bush administration after he lost an election to a dead man.
Yeah, I’m sure that will be a real thorough investigation.
Could things get any more stupid in our world today?
Wait – don’t answer that.
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