Wraith Pinned to Commercial Success

I am a fan of Of Montreal, but I was so disappointed when -- a few months back -- I heard their song Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games in an Outback Steakhouse commercial. Not only did they license the song to that awful restaurant, they even recorded an original version of the song with new Outback Steakhouse lyrics. Leaving me to seethe. The only positive spin I can put on it is that in the original song, the lyrics "Let's go Outback tonight" are supplanted by the lyrics "Let's pretend we don't exist," which may be a comment of its own.

Obviously, I've forgiven them. I went to see them last week, and I didn't boo or anything. They're still one of the feel-goodiest bands there is, and their outfits rule. I just hate that hearing that groovy little bass line should ever make me think of a Bloomin' Onion instead of an acid trip.

"Usted nunca encontrará una colmena más desgraciada de la espuma y de la villanía."

I turned on the TV this morning, like you do. And I flipped to the programming guide and saw that Star Wars was on again. So I tuned to that. It was the cantina scene. I was about five minutes in when I realized I was watching the Spanish language broadcast. Like I had the movie playing for a good three or four minutes with Han and Luke and Obiwan dubbed in Spanish, and I didn't notice it at all. Weird.

Mayo la fuerza esté con usted.

Dakota Fanning is the creepiest thing ever born from a human womb.

My friend Michael forwarded me a link last week wherein Dakota Fanning said that she hoped people weren't let down by her rape scene in Hounddog, which was apparently less bombastic than fans of childhood rape might have been hoping. She told EW the day after the Sundance premiere, ''I think people were expecting something more controversial, and it's like, 'Oh, that's it?'''

Judging from the reviews and the lack of announcement of a distribution deal, I guess it's possible I will have to rely on my imagination to inform my fantasies as to how big of a deal Dakota's non-consensual debut might have been. And that's not all bad. Because in my imagination, she endures a modest raping, delivers an unbearably precocious monologue through her mostly missing baby teeth, and then Tom Cruise throws peanut butter sandwiches against the kitchen window. And how can you blame him. Baby teeth are hideous to look at. Jagged calcium deposits in a field of misshapen gum matter. Gross. If rape is the only way to prevent a follow-up monologue, I say rape on, independent film world. Rape on.

I'll be goddamned if I know.

I love Walter Matthau so much that watching Plaza Suite is too painful and disappointing to bear. While he's Sam, anyway. And then when he becomes Mr. Kiplinger and he says "9" in that duosyllabic way, I guess I can bear it after all.

In the tiniest of nutshells

I have been sick since Wednesday.

Beulah, Yen, Laura, and I went to see Of Montreal on Saturday night at the Avalon. David Bowie was there. They covered a song of his in honor of that fact. It was too hot on the balcony. But downstairs was sublime. I wish I hadn't been so sick.

After the concert, we went to the Cat and the Fiddle. Everyone loved their dinners. I had a snakebite for dinner.

Before Beulah went home on Sunday, I made her a pasta sampler featuring four of my sauces and four different varieties of pasta. She entertained me with her food orgasm. (Simon, I'm sorry if the use of the word "orgasm" gets my site banned from your workplace network again. I don't think I've said "jihad," "sniper," or "how to make bombs from simple household supplies" in this entry, so hopefully "orgasm" will slip by.)

In discussing my eating disorder, Beulah said, "For a genius, you sure are stupid."

Beulah looks super pretty in my pictures from the concert.

I told Rob that The Dresden Files is just Charmed without the Brass Plum fashion sensibility. This made Rob laugh.

I had every intention of writing about the President's State of the Union address. The closest I got was to type snarky remarks about it over IM. I guess I could still write about it. I might.

I was too sick to go to an audition today.

Pat Healy is in every episode of every show I watch. Every single one. So is David Starzyk. Those two dudes should totally arm wrestle.

I went to CVS today to buy more cold medicine. Many brands are on sale. Many of the chutes were empty, and the line at the pharmacy was long. I have a feeling I'm not the only one coughing my eyeballs out and going about all feverish.

I would like a high-paying job, please.

The parking at my post office is all marked 20 minutes. But I don't think I've ever gone into that station and waited in line for less than 30. It occurred to me today that if I had a certain kind of autism, this might send me into an episode.

I don't have autism.

I had a dream this morning that Paget Brewster cast me in a play, but on opening night I was totally unprepared and realized we hadn't blocked my scene, I didn't have a costume, I wasn't off book, and my scene partner and I had never been to a dress rehearsal.

Maybe I do have autism.

I just saw a Hallmark commercial that said, "Love happens with the music of Josh Groban." I'm surprised that Hallmark's legal department didn't require some evidence supporting this claim. Also on the subject of commercials, have you seen this one? It actually increases my respect for Kevin Federline a weensy bit.

I just gave Audrey a bath. I'm going to put on a Josh Groban CD and see what happens. Oh, wait. I don't own a Josh Groban CD.

I've made a lot of progress in sorting out my office and its avalanche of paperwork. This is something to crow about.

I'm flat broke, but I don't care. I strut right by with my tail in the air.

Y'aren't ever going to get out of that tub, Blanche.

I like a bath so hot that it makes you curse as you force yourself into it. I like it scalding and steamy and on the verge of unbearable. I take a book into the bath with me, but it's usually so hot that I can only stand to stay in for a chapter or two.

I like it cold, too. I like the water in general. I envied Johnny's healing tank in Starship Troopers. And I've jumped into swimming pools that were unadvisably chilly because I guess I think it's better to be cold and wet than to be dry and dull.

I think I feel a sick coming on. That's why the bath. Now I'm for tea and down and flannel pajama pants. And hopefully that's all it will take.

My target demographic

I've always done well with the homeless. Travel back in time and ask me in any year you like. I'll always say this is true. Sometimes I've thought it's because I have a friendly face. Sometimes I've thought it's because homeless people must dig Asian chicks. But who am I kidding. Most of the homeless people I meet are men, and men like what Playtex strives to hide.

As I was walking to my show at I.O. West on Monday night, I got a particularly positive response from the various urban outdoorsmen whose paths I crossed. Further proving my hypothesis that the homeless are the only people left who aren't swayed by the Hollywood ideal. Even on Hollywood Boulevard, the fatter I am, the more those dudes appreciate the at-times bulging appearance of my curvaceous fecundity. If the species is going to be perpetuated on the basis of rote instinct, there's a good chance future generations will only be parented by derelicts and fat chicks.

"You gave Jenny the huggies?"

I just saw a heartbreaking commercial for Pedigree dog food. The visual is of dogs behind fences in a shelter. The voiceover is in the first person. A dog saying, "I know how to sit, how to fetch, and how to roll over. What I don't know is how I ended up in here. But I know that I am a good dog. And I just want to go home." These sweet dog faces with their big wet eyes. Of course I just want to bring them all home and put them in my bed. Then what was the dog's voice says, "When you buy Pedigree we make a donation to help shelter dogs find loving homes. The Pedigree adoption drive. Help us help dogs." And there's this bleak, one-note-at-a-time guitar music being plucked in the background. It sure made me want to run out the door with paper currency fanned out of my fist and find all of those dogs and put shirts on them and hug them and hug them and hug them. I can picture myself slow dancing with one of the bigger ones. You know how you can put their paws on your shoulders and...well, I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't have a fistful of money. I don't have a yard. And I haven't done my hair yet. How could I possibly leave the house.

And then Jenny from The Muppets Take Manhattan was playing a bitchy mom in a courtroom scene on Judging Amy. Long gone are the baseball t-shirts and the early '80s running shorts. Replaced by a smart bobbed hairdo and what looks like pink bouclé. Long gone. I know that I am a good dog. And I just want to go home.

La la la la la. Without a shirt. Without a shirt.

I didn't feel much like sleep the other night. I worked for a while, didn't work for a while, read for a while, poked around on the Internet, thought about burning my apartment to the ground, annoyed my dog. And then I watched The Great Gatsby until five a.m. I didn't really mean to. I put the sleep timer on, but -- as happens with certain films and television programs -- it didn't have the effect of lulling me to sleep, because I kept watching it. I haven't seen it in a long time. And I noticed that I watch it differently now. George Wilson now looks to me like a guy I used to work with. I notice Tom Buchanan's oafishness even more. Daisy seems more annoyingly affected than dreamy. Nick is more Jack McCoy than he could have been when I first saw the film, as he hadn't yet been Jack McCoy back then. I noticed the dancing lesbians more specifically. I paid closer attention to what the caterers were bringing in. I thought how much I almost never feel like champagne is a celebration. And I wondered what that poor dead gull must have smelled like. And I felt sad for it and didn't bother myself with any possible symbolism. Sometimes I watch a movie once and love it and then watch it later and despise it. Sometimes I watch a movie once and decry it to the masses and then watch it later and find myself carried away by it. And I think that every day that goes by I'm seeing things and meeting people and filing things into parts of my brain, and it changes me. And I am not the same person today that I would have been yesterday and certainly not the same person I must have been years ago. And it changes what I like and what I despise. So how can they award these Oscars when everyone watching every movie is seeing it from this very personal place? What about the guy who can't stop thinking how much Jack Nicholson looks like his dad? Or the girl who used to date a guy who used to smile just like Leonardo di Caprio? How do you not pay a different sort of attention when a film is set in your home town but is clearly shot in Vancouver?

And wonder seems to fade with stasis, I noticed. I walked my dog this morning. And that yellow apartment building with the red door didn't do anything for me. And I remember when I first started walking Audrey -- often in the middle of the night -- and I would pass that apartment building and look at that red door, and it would make me think of buildings in Italy, and I could see up into the big portrait window upstairs and the people who lived there had such a lot of empty space. Every time I would go for a walk, I would look at the apartments and think about the lives being lived in them and I would wonder and fascinate and wiggle my toes in my shoes. And I would get back home and want to write it down. But today, I noticed there was nothing. I was walking half-asleep, squinting even behind my sunglasses, waiting for Audrey to get her fill of the various lawns so I could go back home and get on with whatever it is I think I'm missing out on when I'm out walking her. I go out, and I come back in. And I go out and come back in. And nothing much changes. And few of the things I want to do get done. It's hard not to get sad about it. Or to at least not get embarrassed. I am so unproductive and lazy, I doubt I could mow a lawn. Even a small one. I dread appointments, but I also cherish them. For making me have to be somewhere. I hate having to be somewhere, but I can't bear having nowhere to be.

When my dog kisses me, she tilts her head to the side and gets all romantic.

A phase is a phase is a phase.

I don't cook as often as I used to. Sometimes I even convince myself that I don't really enjoy it as much as I used to. I've gotten lazy. My kitchen isn't very modern. I want for counter space. But this past week, I caught the bug.

I had chicken that had to be cooked to make room in my freezer. So I made this casserole that my mom used to make. A chicken and rice thing with cream of mushroom soup and Lipton Onion Soup Mix sprinkled on top. The other half of the chicken I fried in a pan. Both turned out great. I didn't really eat much of either. They are in my refrigerator.

Yesterday, I made linguine carbonara. A specialty of mine that really shouldn't be made very often as it is the most fattening possible dish one could hope to eat, short of a bowl of solid fat. And then today, I made meat sauce like my mother taught me, only I don't substitute turkey for the beef and pork (and veal when I can get it). And I had enough meat to also make a bolognese sauce that I haven't made in years. And that sauce calls for a Sicilian tomato sauce recipe that I also had to make. So that's three sauces simmering on my stove all day today. And then I made a tonnato sauce, because I saw the recipe, had all the ingredients, and managed to drop and break a jar of Italian tuna in olive oil -- enough so that it needed to be used but not so much that I'm worried about accidentally eating shards of glass.

I was on my feet in the kitchen all day. I used and washed numerous appliances and pots and pans and then reused and rewashed them. I kept very busy. The Incredible Mr. Limpet was playing on the television for some of the time. My upstairs neighbors were arguing up a storm. And then they weren't. And then they were again. I have a little kitchen timer in the shape of a pear. It was ticking all day. And then it would buzz like crazy. And then I would wind it up and it would begin ticking again. I picture the day going by like in those time lapse films where the sun rises and sets and rises and sets in a matter of seconds. Civilizations came and went. Wars were fought and won. Fashions were established, discarded, and then revived triumphantly. Music stayed mostly the same.

By the time eight o'clock came around, I had finished cooking everything but had no real interest in eating any of it. I didn't even boil any noodles. I just made all the sauces and put them away. And then I cleaned up and went to a party where Ryan and James made me laugh and laugh. It was cold outside. But it was too warm inside to stay in. There was a ham rotting on the mantel. Festively. I photographed it. I didn't photograph much of anything else. Maybe I'm turning over a new leaf. A temporary one. Well, leaves are largely temporary anyway.

"Save a Life -- Yours."

Amazon.com suggested that I get myself a Life Hammer with the following approach:

"Don't be trapped in your vehicle in case of accident--the Life Hammer is designed to help you escape by easily smashing your window and cutting your seatbelt."

Despite my upbringing, I'm not really the sort of person who expects misfortune to find me. But this is precisely the sort of marketing that ignites fantasies in my brain in which I have just driven off a bridge into an ice cold lake which also happens to be teeming with water spiders, anthropomorphized fecal matter, and murderers in diving gear.

The Life Hammer comes in several colors.

Wrongful Deaths

I was working pretty much all day yesterday, and Turner Classic Movies kept me company for much of the time. The pay channels for some of the time. I watched The Dirty Dozen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Player, The Aviator, Quiz Show, and I eventually watched Diva in bed in the wee hours before finally going to sleep. These are all movies I've seen before. And I watched them in the way that I often do -- not necessarily looking at the screen the whole time but hearing every bit. And I remember thinking at one point that it sure makes for compelling drama when someone kills the wrong man or when the bad guy gets his comeuppance but not from the guy he did wrong or when the adulterers don't get caught or when the cuckolded spouse gets yelled at for no reason or when the murderer gets away with it or when hardened criminals become heroes or when heroes become criminals or when French people bootleg opera music but purely for the love of the art. I remember thinking that real drama is fueled by a sense of injustice. Or by the certainty of preventable tragedy. That you can't hang on the edge of your seat if you know not to worry about anyone not wearing a red tunic. That your heart beats less quickly when everything wraps up nicely in the end. Which explains so much about my feelings about Hollywood filmmaking.

Randomly? I used to think Lee Marvin was scary. And that he had a pig nose. Nik Kershaw helped me love Humphrey Bogart. There was a time when I couldn't watch Hannah and Her Sisters because it hurt too much. Watching The Player now that I live in Los Angeles is really, really different. I read Diva before I watched the movie. Sarah and I were in high school, and I got it from the public library's paperback trade-in on the Naval base on Guam. I loved it. And when we rented the movie, I was slightly disappointed. No one was as beautiful as I had imagined them to be. Well, Jules maybe. But I was glad to finally hear La Wally and not have to make it up in my head. Years later, when I made mix tapes of soundtrack music, La Wally was on my downbeat mix. I would like to recreate that mix. If only to recapture the feeling of driving around in a car I no longer have in a city I no longer live in with ideas in my head that have long since come to seem foolheaded. La Wally was one of only three tracks with lyrics. The other two being When You're Alone from Hook, and Victory Celebration/End Titles from The Return of the Jedi Special Edition. Yeah, that last one only goes, "Ya ya ya ya ya." But I guess I think of those as words. And it still used to make me feel my heart in my throat some of the time.

To sum up: I am kind of a nerd.

Record Lows

It was so cold and dry this morning that I had a nosebleed. First one in at least ten years. I think the last time I had one, I was sitting at my desk at Protein Polymer Technologies, and I saw drops of blood splashing onto my computer keyboard. I was wearing a lavender silk blazer, and I was dismayed that I got blood on it. Before that, the last real memory I had of a surprise public nosebleed was in fourth grade. I wrote about it already, so I won't belabor the point. As a little girl, I used to get nosebleeds with some frequency. I would have to climb out of the top bunk of the bunkbed I shared with my sister Sarah and go trouble my parents with my hand to my nose and a bloodstained nightgown. Many of my pillowcases had blood stains on them, now that I think of it. I had a fish pillowcase I liked very much. And a very soft blanket with pale green teddy bears on it. The fish pillowcase definitely had blood on it. I think the teddy bear blanket survived unmarred. Though I don't know what's become of either of them. And it's occasionally a source of dismay. If only I could recapture all of my childhood fancies by way of Amazon.com Marketplace.

So it was a recordbreaking cold day. Lows have been in the 30s. I heard on NPR this morning that today's low broke a record set in the 1930s. There were sheets of ice on the 405. I had a fire in the fireplace and soaked my ice cold feet in scalding bathwater at least five times today to restore some amount of circulation to them. It was cold enough to make my nose bleed and cold enough to keep the blood from ever reaching my extremities. Cold enough to wear mittens and stamp one's feet when standing still outside. Cold enough to make the obligatory conversations about how cold it is seem slightly less jejune. Just last week, it was hot as summertime. I only narrowly escaped falling prey to seasonal illness. It's the ups and downs that get you. The getting caught out after nightfall in a t-shirt and jeans when suddenly you could keep meat and dairy products on your doorstep with no fear of them going to spoil.

It is going to continue to be cold for the next few days, according to the weather services. I don't like to turn the heat on in my apartment. It smells a certain way. Dries my whole head out in a certain way. But when it's 55 degrees inside, I sometimes give in. And when I do, I'm reminded of all of my previous winters in this place. That smell. That nauseating cushion of artificial coziness that is so much more present in my bedroom than anywhere else in the place. I don't like the way it feels. But I like remembering how it felt before. If that makes any sense.

"A real squared-away guy."

My dad and I spent a few days hanging out after the new year began. I cooked dinner a few times, and we would watch movies. The Maltese Falcon. High Anxiety. His company delights me. It wasn't hard for me to stretch my misplaced Christmas out for days and days. And on the day I was finally determined to load my car up and head back to Los Angeles, we had a conversation that somehow led him to show me the CDs he had bought, which were essentially cruise books from when he was a Seabee in Vietnam that someone had scanned and packaged for sale.

My dad paged through the PDF and made comments as they occurred to him. This commanding officer was a real squared-away guy. This one...well, he wasn't one. This guy really had a tough job, because his men were the worst slackers and layabouts in the bunch. Look, the Seabees had a pet bear.

Well, I copied those PDFs and clipped out the images I found with my dad in them. This is him as a guy in his thirties. He sure was handsome and great.

I was going to crop out these images and write this post more than a week ago, but it -- like everything -- wriggled free of my volition for a while. And then I was watching a vintage featurette about The Dirty Dozen today, and the narrator kept referring to Lee Marvin and the other stars of the film as "action men." And I loved it. And decided to pay some small homage to a time when men were men of action, and Tim Allen was nowhere to be found.

Having a Crush and More

It's beginning to look a lot less like Christmas.

Well, if you asked Santa for less of my prattling on and on, I hope you've taken a moment to thank him. It's not that I haven't been up to anything or that I haven't been noticing the same frequency of bullshit and/or bliss-inducing goings on. I've jotted plenty in my notebook. But for some reason, the longer I stay away, the easier it becomes to stay away. The harder it seems to approach the task of catching up. It happens with friends sometimes. You wait so long to say hello that you almost feel ashamed to try and say it at all. But when the friendships are real, you can always just pick right back up. That's been my experience. You have to ask if you've told this one before. And you have to give a little backstory before getting into the meat of things, but your voices don't change that much. And you probably laugh at the same things you used to. And at some point, you have a sigh and say aloud that it's good to be back in touch. And you mean it.

This is not me trying to personify my blog. This is just me using another ragged metaphor to offset my delinquency. Maybe you've missed me. Maybe you haven't. I can forgive either case.

I spent my Christmas in Hawaii and my New Year's Eve in Christmas. And all of a sudden it's 2007, and I don't entirely buy it. I never really ran through the Christmas gauntlet. Although I did manage to feel my share of shopping pressures and the unmatched anxiety that comes from having to pack up all my gifts and their wrappings and then go about the actual wrapping of the gifts. I felt all of that. And I did leave the A Christmas Story marathon on in the hotel room all night long on Christmas Eve, so there were some traditions left un-upended. But I noticed that I didn't feel so irrevocably attached to my traditions. Surprisingly. It was sort of freeing. To be away from home and unable to fulfill expectations and out of touch with all of the things left incomplete. Surprisingly freeing.

Well, I'm sorry I missed the things I missed. I'm sorry I didn't get to ring in the New Year with my many festive friends. I'm sorry I didn't get to eat my mother's Christmas prime rib. I'm sorry I didn't sing in church on Christmas Eve. I'm sorry I still haven't had ice cream at Disneyland. But being sorry is its own tradition. And some things never change.

I bought my parents a firepit, but I haven't put it together yet. In my own way, I'm just making Christmas last.

Glad Tidings

My lovely sister Sarah and her lovely beau Paul got engaged tonight. And I couldn't be happier.

Cold and hot feel exactly the same at first.

I began writing this in August. And even then, it was really just a transcription of the things I wrote in a plain, brown journal. Mostly notes taken while reading, occasionally ideas of my actual own. Potential titles for future journal entries. Potential kindling for future fires. None of this will mean anything. I promise.

I was dreaming and it was war and there was a monkey.

He's too singularly responsible for my current unhappiness.

It's an impossible amount of time. And yet, there it is.

What is and isn't important begins to blur together.

My body is sore from being told "no."

Apophenia. The spontaneous perception of connections and meaningfulness in unrelated things.

I am not such a nothing after all, I think. I am not such a nothing.

You have a lot of time on your hands.
Picasso had a lot of time on his hands.
Shut up.

No fair. You changed the outcome by measuring it.

Dream. At N's house for a party. Downloading photos but not talking to her. Then Audrey tried to eat a min pin puppy.

Flipped through a deck of cards and pulled out an Ace of Spades.

"Nothing in life has any business being perfect." King Henry, The Lion in Winter
"Departure is a simple out. You put the left foot down and then the right." Eleanor, The Lion in Winter

Schoziphrenia. Adler. So little personal ballast that he has to suck in an entire other human being to keep from disappearing or flying away. He asked the doctor quietly and with tears in his eyes, "You won't make me disappear, will you?"

The weight of days is dreadful. Which is Camus, I think.

Only angels know unrelieved joy -- or are able to stand it.

He was alive and empty, which is so close to Godhood that it was crazy.

An old woman was squeaking as she walked. Her companion answered a cell phone with the oldest-sounding "Hello" I have ever heard.

That's another thing that sucks about The Wizard of Oz.

A sophisticated and veiled form of rejection.

Thinking begets doubt.

Limitlessness is the cause of all evils.

A prayer is significant but neither true nor false.

The deliberate lie

A triangle laughs

Catching the shadow of shadows

leere Gedankendinge (empty thought things)

reason's need
reason's uncontested rulership in the household of the soul

the powerful sovereignty of the mind

the soundless dialogue of the I with itself

a deliberate withdrawal from appearances

things which are not yet and things which are no more

toward the understanding of things that are always absent, that cannot be remembered because they were never present to sense experience

In order for us to think about somebody, he must be removed from our presence; so long as we are with him we do not think either of him or about him; thinking always implies remembrance; every thought is strictly speaking an after-thought.

At times I think, and at times I am.

Take on the color of the dead.

Mnemosyne, Memory, is the mother of the Muses.

Thinking annihilates temporal as well as spatial distances.

Remembrance versus anticipation

Orpheus and Eurydice

Every thought is an after-thought.

A word that signifies both fame and opinion

"You're more than popular. You're pure lowest common denominator."

forever solitary by reason of his excellence

to illuminate an experience which does not appear

This helps to explain, too, why the typical phallic narcissist, the Don Juan character, often takes any object -- ugly or beautiful -- that comes along, with the same unconcern. He does not really take account of it in its total personal qualities.

Dream of Taco Bell with D and M. Dinner with P and Beulah and E and J. Telling jokes and feeling like I was trying too hard. I said that if I had a baby born with a birth defect, I'd probably drown it. P said, scoldingly, "Mary Forrest, you wouldn't." And I said, "Well, I'd want to. But of course I wouldn't. And then thirty-five years later, I'd be sitting there with little Jib Jab." And then Beulah was teasing J, who grabbed her hand and began bending her fingers apart for fun but broke her little finger completely off. And I freaked out and went to get ice and take her to the ER. In the Taco Bell, they kept asking us to leave for a moment and making us stand in the rain. It was actually a Subway. And half my sandwich was empty.

I actually have to be up at A TIME.

"Three" is your answer to every question.

Vitamins stuck in my throat. I washed them down with whiskey.

You're not death. You're just a kid in a suit.

Wonder begets rainbow.

It's a streetlight. But it may as well be the moon.

Dream of Beulah and me. Flying around the world (like in Around the World in 80 Days). Paper fish balloon plane. Hotel in Japan. Flying over the ocean.

Going mad with eloquence

Bad people are not full of regrets.

Absence of the inner accusing dialogue. A lack of conscience.

Between Chuan Chen and a butterfly, there must be some destination.

That episode of Futurama where Fry finds his lost dog makes me so sad. That dog waited his whole life for Fry, and Fry never knew it. It's the saddest, saddest thing.

What is brought into being by action is that which could also be otherwise.

The future is nothing but a consequence of the past.

John Stuart Mill. Our internal conscioiusness tells us that we have a power which the whole outward experience of the human race tells us that we never use.

Rock, water -- would believe they moved of their own will. Spinoza surmised that we act in the illusion of free will because we are conscious of our actions and unconscious of the causes by which these actions are determined.

Descartes. Refuse then to be free, if freedom does not please you.

Every hope carries within itself a fear, and every fear cures itself by turning to the corresponding hope.

Leibniz. Everything that is, looked at from the viewpoint of the whole, is the best.

The futile attempt at willing backward which, if successful, could only end in the annihilation of everything that is.

A change of pajamas.

Nap dream. There was this leviathan. A fish snake. I had this dream before. I had to use a flute to escape it. I lost someone. The fish swallowed the flute. There was a ship. I was in the sea. I was going to die.

My first awareness of Adolf Hitler was by way of Family Feud.

We are your better selves.

I would totally have dated Ray Bolger.

It could have been a very different life for me.

How reckless human courage would be if experienced pain left no memory behind.

A self-evident theory, standing in need of no special reasoning

Augustine. In his youth he had turned to philosophy out of inner wretchedness, and as a man he turned to religion because philosophy had failed him.

"I have become a question for myself."

Anybody who says, "I'd rather not exist than be unhappy," cannot be trusted, since while he is saying it he is still alive.

It is in the nature of the will to be resisted.

The durability of love. Even able to coexist with revulsion.

Deepening of genius.

If I foresaw my future and it held devastation, I would go forward as planned. I have never been one to spare myself where suffering is concerned.

"Our whole life is nothing but a race toward death."

Would have defined us not as mortals but like the Greeks, "natals."

They say that all good things must end someday. There is no surprise in this.

When love loses its restlessness
Neither pursuing an end
Nor afraid of losing it
Doesn't it also lose its flavor altogether
Maybe feeling can only be translated
In the vibrations that radiate off of
Nervous tremblings and fear

He died too young. Too young for a philosopher.

Possession extinguishes desire and delight.

"The bird and the plane are nearly the same."
"Every shoulder has a highway you can cry on."

1st person personification of Oscar: "My Metal Self"

Quantum fissure. Alternate realities. Everything that can happen does.

"One of the first things a child has to do is to learn to abandon ecstasy, to do without awe, to leave fear and trembling behind."

Cary Grant takes the stairs two at a time.
Tall, dark, and Cary Grant.

Adler describes schizophrenia. So little personal BALLAST that he has to suck in an entire other human being to keep from disappearing or flying away.

the dispassionate quiet of the soul

No one who possesses the true faculty of thinking, and therefore the weakness of words, will ever risk framing thoughts in discourse, let alone fix them in so inflexible a form as that of written letters.

"The internal limit of all thinking...is that the thinker never can say what is most his own...because the spoken word receives its determination from the ineffable."

"The results of philosophy are the uncovering...of bumps that the intellect has got by running its head up against the limits of language.

"But, as I said before, I had no time to be bored; there were my old friends, Logos, Bucephalus, arras, lucubration and so on. Why play chess? Locked up like that for days and nights on end I began to realize that thinking, when it is not masturbative, is lenitive, healing, pleasurable. The thinking that gets you nowhere takes you everywhere; all other thinking is done on tracks and no matter how long the stretch, in the end there is always the depot of the roundhouse. In the end there is always a red lantern which says STOP!" (Miller)

Sinus Relief. Delousing. Tomayto. Tomahto.

If you ever decide to try SudaCare Shower Soothers, I hope you will look on the box and check to make certain the active ingredient isn't listed as Zyklon B or prussic cyanide gas. Because there is nothing about the way these things are being marketed that doesn't look like a way to conveniently turn a shower into your very own home gas chamber.

The center cannot hold.

Dog on my lap. Sun in the glass. Cloudy, non-specific sense of urgency somewhere in my chest or throat. Nothing out of the ordinary. I am guilty of not counting days when they are beautiful. Of waiting for the streets to be wet with rain before I appreciate them for not having been.

This is my favorite weather. Even on the days when it rains. This time of year is the one that makes a year seem like a year. When my hands need pockets for warmth. When indoor climates are more unpredictable than outdoor ones. No matter how cold it gets, there is nothing more unpleasant than overheat. I've never been burned by acid or bitten by a wolf or drowned or electrocuted or stabbed much. But I'm pretty sure there is nothing worse than sitting indoors in a place where the heat is on too high. The stuffy injustice of everyone around you flushed and sweating in cashmere and too many layers of t-shirt. I prefer the cold to lead me to warm drinks and fireplaces and maybe an outdoor heat lamp. But let the heat be localized. Please oh please let the heat be localized.

This year, I haven't been to Vegas. I haven't had a car accident. I haven't gotten a parking ticket. I haven't gotten my camera fixed. I haven't learned a new language. I haven't baked a cake. I haven't sent a handwritten letter. I haven't left the door wide open, even when it was unbearably hot. I never said these were things I wanted or needed to do. But I notice their presence on an imaginary checklist. And I notice the absence of checkmarks.

I went to the art supply store near my apartment today. I hadn't been all year. They've moved everything around. It's easy enough to figure out where things are, but none of it is where it was. The aisles with the pads of paper and notebooks are marked by shelves that seem taller than the others. When you walk amongst them, it's like being in a forest. Some secret place. And when the guy with the two piercings coming out of the corners of his mouth asks if you need help, it startles you. Because it felt like you were the only one in the world in need of paper for drawing.

After a bath, I put lotion on my arms that I haven't used since 1996 or 1997. The fragrance is aggressively familiar. I remember putting on this lotion in my bedroom in the house that later burned down. I remember listening to CDs while I got dressed. I remember looking in that vast mirror and wishing there was more light. I remember sitting in the corner at a small drawing desk I no longer have and writing something rhymey by the light of a clip-on lamp. I remember seeing the moon through beige blinds above a grove of eucalyptus trees. And finding ways to write about it without saying the actual words. Sometimes, I sit in the bath with a book and lament the eventual loss of the bubbles and the heat and the perfect sultry stillness. Sometimes, I sit there and just wait for the bath to be over. As if it's something to endure. Bored, but unwilling to let all that hot water go to waste.

My mother says, when you're staying in a hotel, to take lots of hot baths. That's what you're paying for.

It's well into December and I'm nowhere near ready for it.

Repetitive Motion Injury

Although it comes but once a year, it isn't lost on me that it comes every year, this Thanksgiving business. And that each new one I celebrate is piggybacked on all the rest that preceded it. And that maybe I'm getting tired of having all these milestones to mark my progress. Or regress. Or no-gress, as the case my be. Maybe it's just "gress" at that point.

Often with the hope of not being extremely redundant -- despite the fact that eating a turkey dinner every year at the same time seems prone to a redundancy that even Kurt Vonnegut couldn't dress up in disguise -- I end up reading over my previous writings on this subject. Now that I've been writing in this venue for over five years, there's more to pick through and more to tiptoe round. It wastes a bunch of time. And usually leaves me with the feeling that the thing I wrote last year or the year before was better than whatever I'm going to say now, and why didn't I ever get paid to write when I was saying clever things like that? And why doesn't it result in any palpable satisfaction to read something I've written and like it? Why isn't that ever ever enough? Anyway. I went back is my point.

I began my holiday on Wednesday, leaving town at precisely the stupidest possible time and having already been warned that there was some shitty-ass shit going on on the 405. But surprisingly, I really didn't suffer much. The big hubbub in El Segundo was still there, and many lanes were closed, but I probably had to slow down for ten or fifteen minutes, and then once I was through it, I was flying along at 75 the rest of the way. So I got to my parents' house with time to heft all my junk in the house, write my annual Thanksgiving email, feel very tired and contemplate not doing anything social, and then get myself into the car and on my way to Ono Sushi, where a typically super duper dinner was had. After sushi, I visited Nunu's, where I was treated like a princess -- as usual. I had hoped to stop by Jivewire at The Casbah, but the ranks of enthusiastic compatriots had thinned, and I guess I was tired enough that dancing would have done me in. So I'm glad that Nunu's was where we landed. My mom didn't even hassle me about not getting home until well after her Thanksgiving day preparations had begun. That's unprecedented.

Come to think of it, this year was different than previous years in a few ways. But it was also very much the same. Maybe with deliberation attached. Like my annual Thanksgiving nightcap at Nunu's. I've come to look forward to that, so I make a point of perpetuating it. This year, there were so many people there with me and other people there that I knew, it really did feel like it's own special holiday thing. And after a dinner of turkey and lobster -- yes, LOBSTER -- and more things than can be artfully put on a normal-sized plate at once without layering and overrun unless you serve your cranberry relish and yams and stuffing in tiny little tablespoonsful, like they might do at a chi chi restaurant. With like cilantro oil or a vanilla-infused truffle and balsamic vinegar reduction drizzled on the plate and a garnish of something like star fruit or caviar. That gives me an idea. Would anyone mind if I started calling poultry eggs caviar? I will serve turkey caviar at my next Thanksgiving dinner. And see if anyone notices. And if anyone wants to try and fit it on melba toast.

If I can recall properly, here was our menu:

Appetizers
Cheese Platter
- Aged Mimolette
- Huntsman (Stilton layered with Double Gloucester)
- Wensleydale
- one other one I didn't try
- every possible kind of cracker
Fresh Fruit
Marinated Mushrooms
Kalamata Olives
Picholine Olives
Wine: Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon

Dinner
Roast Turkey (specially brined and cooked to moist perfection)
Broiled Lobster Tails with Clarified Butter
Mashed Potatoes
Jansen's Temptation (a Swedish potato casserole, apparently secretly including herring -- yum)
Chestnut Stuffing
Mashed Yams with Apricots and Almonds (?), Topped with Bruléed Marshmallows and Coconut
Cranberry Relish (a special recipe that causes all others to be deemed inferior)
Green Beans (I almost called them Haricots Verts. And I can't remember if they were Amandine.)
Corn (It wasn't fancy, but it's still my favorite.)
Gravy (duh)
Wine: Stag's Leap Merlot and Robert Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon

Dessert
Side by Side Pumpkin Pie and New York Cheesecake with Raspberries
Espresso/Cappuccino
Apéritif: Sambuca

I hope I've managed to make it sound fancy and perfectly planned and brilliantly executed. Because it was. And I noticed how proud and happy it made my mother to have everything go over so well. Big success. Big success.

Friday night, I went over to Beulah's, and we went shopping for groceries and treated ourselves to a variety of artery-clogging snacks. A lot of cheese and crackers and apples and pepperoni and stuff. But also Totino's Pizza Rolls. In case anyone was wondering if I've ever eaten poorly. Believe me. I have. And I do. We also watched The New World on pay-per-view. Essentially only because it's another flick Christian Bale is in, and Beulah is devoted as the day is long. We didn't like it. It was the slowest movie I've watched in a long time. Perhaps ever. Unbelievably slow. And the dialogue was so soft and so ickily poem-like that I often had to stop chewing and lean in to try and hear what was being said, only to find that what they were saying revealed nothing at all story-wise. The only way Beulah and I were able to enjoy it was in being so disappointed in it. We began to sarcastically wish it could just be slower. That Christian Bale and Pocahontas would just TAKE THEIR TIME. I once heard a comedian say that he was surprised that Finding Neverland had been nominated for Best Picture; he said the movie was so slow it should have been nominated for Best Photograph. I liked Finding Neverland, but I thought that joke was funny. Even funnier, however, was Beulah's exclamation during one of the sequences of inanimate objects being shot for long silent moments for no apparent reason: "This movie is a screensaver." It really is like a two-and-a-half hour poetry reading. And if you're into that, we probably shouldn't go to the movies together. Incidentally, Beulah's never seen Reign of Fire and was concerned that it, too, would suck. But I maintain that Reign of Fire is a terribly underrated film. As long as you let yourself buy into the whole dragons thing -- and as long as you can bear to watch Matthew McConaughey playing an insufferable wacko, which I further maintain is less insufferable than watching him play a love interest or a looker -- and if you allow that these kinds of grandiose fantasies might call for some grandiose acting, it's perfectly entertaining to watch. And it contains one of my more favorite Star Wars references. Which will do nothing to help Beulah want to watch it, I realize.

I performed in a couple of improv shows on Saturday night, spent the night at Beulah's place, then drove home to Los Angeles today, with not much traffic to grouse about, bookending a relatively painless travel experience. And while I was driving up today, I listened to nothing but Beatles music on the radio. First it was just Beatles Beatles Beatles, and then it was an hour-long tribute to George Harrison, the fifth anniversary of whose death is this Wednesday. Which made me sad, and made me marvel at how long it's been, because I distinctly remember when I heard he had passed. And the night it happened was an awful one for me, through no fault of George's. Golden Slumbers made me think of Tasha, which made me cry a bit. The rest of it made me think assorted things. I never give you my pillow. I only send you my invitation. And in the middle of the celebrations, I break down...Lying there and staring at the ceiling, waiting for a sleepy feeling...You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.....Everybody had a hard year. Everybody had a good time. Everybody had a wet dream. Everybody saw the sunshine...Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer came down upon her head. Bang, bang, Maxwell's silver hammer made sure that she was dead...Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to, I will...Boy, you gotta carry that weight, carry that weight a long time.

Very little Guitar Hero was played. Very little sleep was had. There was an unfortunate -- and perhaps statistically unavoidable -- falling out with my mother. She was so happy with me for two straight days. That couldn't possibly have continued without somehow triggering the onset of Armageddon. I had a lot of work to do. I squeezed that in where possible. I edited and posted photos, despite drooping eyelids and flagging spirits. I didn't get to eat Thanksgiving leftovers even once. And I didn't bring any home, which is usually the case and an unfortunate one. I drove home wondering why I allow things to matter, particularly when I am doing it alone. And I felt thankful for a sense of history. Even though it's a sense of history that most often prevents me from ever having a sense of present.

Everybody had a hard year. Everybody had a good time. Everybody had a wet dream. Everybody saw the sunshine.>

You know what I am thankful for? You, et cetera.

Reprinted from an actual email.

Dearest email recipient,

Please consider this my heartfelt request that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. I guess you could choose to not have a wonderful holiday, and there's nothing saying that what I want is atop your list of priorities, but if saying so makes any difference, I'm pulling for you in the great battle of enjoyment of the holiday versus glaring at people who look to be happier than you.

So, let it not be left unsaid that you are awesome, and I applaud you for having the temerity to share your email address with me. I even applaud the apathy that has kept you from changing said email address or -- in the event that you really need to keep it -- creating an email filter just to weed out messages from me. No one would blame you. Even I know that.

But consider doing a few things for me this Thanksgiving, if you would.

1. When the "what are you thankful for" thing is making the rounds, think of Mary Forrest. Just for a second. You don't even have to say it out loud. In fact, it's perfectly acceptable for you to think, "What am I thankful for? Not Mary Forrest." As long as I'm on your mind.

2. Don't tell anyone about how bad the holiday traffic is or why the city you live in is better because it is not Los Angeles. (This means you, San Diego.)

3. Let someone else have a turn at Guitar Hero.

4. Tell the people you love that you love them, and make sure to point out that you're only saying it because it's expected of you.

5. If you have a dog, make him or her wear a humiliating outfit.

6. Don't get murdered. I ask this of you a few times a year, I know. But my stalwartness is unwaveringly vigilant. If you can do everything in your power to not be murdered this Thanksgiving, you will have given me yet another thing to be thankful for. Thank you in advance.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and know with great certainty that I am thankful for you. Even if you are receiving this email in error.

Mary Forrest, thanksgiver

Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

I drove down to San Diego early yesterday morning to sing in church, as I had promised my parents I would. I learned the song I was going to sing as I was driving, and I was not optimistic that I would perform it well, as the service went on much longer than I expected. The Spanish-speaking congregation was joining the regular congregation and the entire service was being done bilingually, which means in any language: TWICE AS LONG. I was playing hangman and madlibs with Sarah. By the time the pastor was beckoning me to come forward, I suddenly realized I no longer knew the words to the song.

Fortunately, that's when my performance auto-pilot kicks in.

My dad cried a great deal, apparently. And at the potluck after the service, some old guy said to me, "Mary, I think you're losing your touch. Your dad didn't look to me like he was crying." I relayed this to my dad, who cried out vehemently, "I was weeping! I was weeping!" And then he had Dolores tell me about how, while I was singing, she was shaking and felt as if God put his arms around her and made her feel warm. And another woman in my father's Bible study told me that when she saw my father in the morning, she had teased him. "I told him,'I know what you're going to be doing later, Sam. CRYING.'" But then she said she felt bad because she ended up crying, too. And one member of the congregation paid me this compliment: "I loved your song. It was so beautiful. If you are around when I die, I would like you to sing it at my funeral." It was all very nice and very embarrassing. And I was glad to get back to my parents' house and have a nap.

Best moment of the day. We were singing the hymn Count Your Blessings, and there is a verse that essentially admonishes you not to count your riches on earth, because you will have riches in heaven that are greater, including a house and land. And my mom leaned over to me while we were singing and said mirthfully, "I don't think so."

Amen.

I don't have it in me to write this with the flair I would wish.

I went to see Stranger than Fiction last night. Here are the things that occurred to me to write down in my little Moleskine notebook, presented in a less than fully fleshed-out manner.

"Wednesday" has a "d" in it.

If Amélie had been an American film, it might have sounded a lot like this film at first. I loved Amélie. So this observation makes me angry.

There's that Fractured Fairy Tales sort of vector animation again.

And there's that guy from the Sonic commercials.

By simply not getting any more or less attractive, Linda Hunt has now surpassed Tom Hulce in attractiveness. Which is thoroughly dismaying.

The fat people sitting to my right laugh at all the most obvious and disappointing places. I'm sure they go to Ren Faire. I'm sure of it.

They cast Will Ferrell to play alongside every short actor in Hollywood, it seems.

"It's been a very revealing ten seconds."

Who would sit on the buckle of the bus?

Spoon soundtrack. Yay!

"Aren't you relieved to know you aren't a golem?"

Smoking in the rain gives the appearance of ruling.

Hey, look. A Moleskine notebook.

"Who in their right mind, when given a choice between pancakes and living, chooses pancakes?" Me, probably.

And then it went and got life-affirming. I hate that.

The apple on the ground reminded me of The Great Orange Adventure.

Why does my dad love Queen Latifah? I hate her.

Sue Grafton in plastic.

What would have killed me is reading that manuscript on a moving bus.

Heart-shaped cookie provokes "awwwww" from Ren Faire folk. *Shakes fist.*

What do you want to bet this ending was a compromise?

"Even if you avoid this death, another will find you...It's the nature of all tragedies."

Memory Makes Mincemeat

Today makes ten years. Tomorrow makes six.

We get to decide what is and isn't meaningful. If everything I remembered was worth remembering, the rest of the world would be at a considerable deficit. As it is, recall is just a habit for me. A valueless, hindrance-prone habit. And a constant reminder that one recollection is not as powerful as two.

Elusive Villainy
Note: I'm not going to assume I need to provide a spoiler alert. I read Casino Royale when I was in grade school, so I already knew a lot of what was going to happen. But if you are fearful that you will not be able to be authentically mystified if you have read any plot points before seeing the film, I encourage you to read this entry later. Cool? Cool.
I got to see the press screening of Casino Royale on Tuesday, which should have resulted in a review of some kind, but I forewent promptness for truly skillful procastination. Partially because I was supposed to go see it a second time on Friday and partially because I am unreliable.
I think I shared some misgivings with Bond fans the world over that Daniel Craig was too thuggish to play the smooth operator with the casual aplomb that made the previous good Bonds good and the previous less than good Bonds less than. But with just the prologue and the opening titles and a few minutes of the first scene behind me, I had already decided. Daniel Craig is no Sean Connery, but he's no slouch. And David Arnold is almost John Barry, and that's saying a goddamn mouthful.
I was really entertained by the opening titles. Even though I am being made to feel a little antsy by the sudden fashionability of vector animation in live action features. Maybe it started with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Or with a commercial for a breakfast cereal. I don't know. The fact that it seemed derivative kind of rankled me at first glance, but then I decided to lighten up and appreciate the witty image transitions. At one point, I thought, "Spirograph?" But the rest of it went down pretty smoothly. Especially at the climax. By the end of the opening titles, I bought Daniel Craig as Bond. Blue-eyed thuggery and all. And then that first action sequence. An ambitiously choreographed chase/fight scene that was so action-packed, so intense, and so mostly free of Bond witticisms that you wouldn't know you were watching a Bond film were it not for the David Arnold score, which reminds you that music in action films is seldom as good as it could be, especially when you weigh the impact of techno music against a full orchestra. And in this first scene, Daniel Craig is so tough and so sure. So rough and tumble. In a way, it felt like a deliberate attempt to unseat the notion that this is a guy who cares about his shirts. His pursuit of his quarry is so comparatively unballetic, it recalls that moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy stops that Cairo swordsman with his pistol instead of his whip. Just a lot of "to hell with this." This Bond is deliberately rugged, deliberately more of a bleeder, and deliberately less wry. And for my part, I like it.
Some of the shots through the latticework of the cranes and the construction site reminded me of a documentary I once saw about William Wyler, who noted I think it was William Wellman and his habit of shooting action and dialogue through deliberate visual obstructions. I doubt it was any sort of homage. But it proved that I am never not thinking about everything else I've ever seen or heard. Annoying.
There are times the film feels like an outright Sony commercial, with VAIO, Sony Ericsson, and Cyber-shot product placement that receives better framing than some of the featured actors. The second movie -- the one that begins right when the movie should have ended -- is where this is most prominent. There are times when I wish my comfort with technology didn't make it so difficult to sell me on fictitious application interfaces or make it so hard for me to ignore the preposterous notion that MI6 computers actually sport military intelligence wallpaper. But I'm learning to be less of a pain in the neck in this respect. I can't, however, be less of a pain in the neck when it comes to wardrobe. I have never seen uglier dresses in a Bond film. Not even in Live and Let Die. Just plain abominable. So, in addition to the fact that I didn't find either of the Bond girls especially compelling, every time they came on screen, I scowled at their low-budget couture and -- in Eva Green's case -- the low-budget way they wore it.
The Body Worlds exhibit is prominently featured early on in the film. I chuckled to myself, remembering the time Beulah and Justin and I visited the exhibit during its visit to Los Angeles. I remembered all the installations that prompted Beulah to snicker and say, "Look at the anus."
Daniel Craig doesn't walk well. There is something overly erect about his posture. Something forced and unnatural. It's not a deal breaker. But I can't not notice. Especially when the hallmark of 007 is his appearance of being at ease in even the most harrowing situations. He's got an unmistakably excellent physique. But it's a shame he can't appear a little more relaxed in it. Also, you can totally see his package in every outfit they put him in.
A Photoshop reference? *shakes head*
I have two big complaints about this movie. One is the clumsy narrative exposition that kept making me want to cry out, "I get it! Stop telling me what's going on. I'm on top of it. Seriously. Shut up. Honestly. Christ." I just think that if you constantly have to provide a play-by-play, maybe you're not doing your job directorially. It's like being made to read the libretto before going to see an opera if you've any hope of knowing what's going on. In movies, everything you need to know is supposed to be right there. If you're constantly having to be reminded what to notice and what to pay attention to, the cinematic storytelling is failing. And the filmmaker thinks you're probably a low-scorer on your various standardized tests. "I'll stake you. And by that I mean that I will put up the money for you to play. And by that I mean that I will transfer money into your name so that you can stay in the game. Get it? No? Okay, let's try some other synonyms. P.S. Guess what. I'm with the CIA."
The second complaint is the overly sentimental and inexplicable affair between James Bond and Vesper Lynd. I never bought this for a minute. She is obnoxious and unappealing from the outset, and she never does a thing to redeem herself or to win him over. So the fact that they fall in love at all is implausible. And the way they fall in love -- essentially all verbally and without the slightest shred of real sexual combustion -- is just plain nauseating.
Mads Mikkelsen, who plays Le Chiffre, was pretty great, if you ask me. And I noticed that, now that my sister is dating a Swede, I can spot those Scandinavian and Danish accents right off. And it occurs to me that this is what the sum of your life experience gets you. There are things you know and things you don't. And there are things you will know because of things you just found out. And you should never wish you could go back to some other time in your life, because -- if nothing else -- you wouldn't have been as quick to notice when a guy probably speaks fluent Danish.
Ultimately, I think the movie was twenty minutes too long, and the clarity of the story was irreparably fractured by the unfortunate abandonment of the original story line when it neatly wraps itself up, leaving ample (and awful) opportunity for the exploration of a pasty, wooden love affair between two people who have no reason to smile at each other. I also think that the movie spends too much time trying to analyze James Bond as a man, providing unnecessary and in some cases illogical back story to his character. I don't want to know why he is cold or why he is suddenly no longer cold. I don't want to know what makes him tick. And I certainly don't want to see M mothering him over the telephone. I want to see the mission. Period. That is the directive I would give if I were making this movie at my imaginary high-budget film studio. Show me the mission. And that is not a reference to Jerry Maguire.
So, yes. As was foretold, this film takes a much less refined and much more sober view of the work of the secret agent. The pugilism is more brutal, the victories more costly. This is not the James Bond you fell in love with, if you fell in love with any of the others that came before. But it is James Bond, in the end. It's a movie about a secret agent, and that was always all that mattered to me.

I play my red guitar.

I don't often go on and on about how nice my weekend was. But this past weekend deserves laudatory distinction. On Friday, Beulah drove up to see me do stand-up at the Comedy Store. She was one of twelve friends who showed up, but she drove the furthest. I was not horrified at my performance, but I was sapped of energy by the time I got to go up, which was hours after I got there and the third to last spot in the line-up. And I never even got a drink in me. Never not one.

After the show, a handful of us went over to the Dresden and then to Fred 62. So I got drinks and breakfast in my gullet and cigarette smoke in my lungs, and I went home very late feeling very pleased. Because I have lovely friends and an extraordinary sister, and the stress of doing a show was well behind me.

In between snatches of sleep and the odd meal and Borat and running lines with Jessie for the sketch we're doing at Garage Comedy, I spent much of the weekend playing Guitar Hero II and watching the Star Wars Marathon on Cinemax. I do love a marathon. Especially the kind I can leave on all night. Even while I'm sleeping. When I turned on the television on Saturday morning, the end credits for The Empire Strikes Back were rolling, and I was disappointed, but then Return of the Jedi came on, and I was actually able to pique Beulah's rather geek-hating interest when I pointed out that Han Solo is very clearly modeled after Rhett Butler. We had just watched Gone with the Wind a week or two ago, and she ranks it among her favorites. So when I pointed out the similarities between Captains Solo and Butler, it pleased me that she seemed marginally swayed into believing maybe -- just maybe she might be able to enjoy Star Wars after all. Those similarities, by the way, are as follows:

smuggler:blockade runner
rogue:rogue
not loyal to either side:not loyal to either side
profiteer:profiteer
thinks Leia wants to kiss him:thinks Scarlett needs to be kissed (and often)
handsome man's man:handsome man's man
competing with girlish boy:competing with girlish man

Mark Hamill went to my high school. In Japan. I stole the copy of the yearbook with him in it. I have it somewhere. I think I had forgotten about it entirely, but Beulah was telling Kerstin that fact, and it reminded me. And I furrowed my brow and wondered how many other little stories worth a "wow" I've failed to keep from being sloughed away in the great brain cell holocaust that occurs whenever I'm at a bar. Lots probably. It's dismaying. Also dismaying is how different Mark Hamill looked after all that reconstructive sugery. Poor guy.

I'm kicking the ass of Guitar Hero II, by the way. I'm good at less and less, but this is one of the things at which I am goodest.

I didn't get to do a number of things I had planned to this weekend. I missed out on parties and plans that I'm sure would have been worth the effort. But in the end, I had a lovely time. I even got to make use of my fireplace for the first time this season. And I had an egg nog-flavored something at the Coffee Bean. These are a few of my favorite things.

Catching Up with Mary and Her Mom
I was watching the election returns with my mother on Tuesday night, and I saw that Jerry Brown had won, and I said, "Yay! Jerry Brown! Yay!" (I wrote a blog decrying Chuck Poochigian's awful campaign commercial, so I feel slightly responsible.) And my mom said, "Jerry Brown is a crook." And I said, "No, he isn't. What are you talking about? How is he a crook?" And she said, "I don't know. You'll have to come down to San Diego and ask your dad." Apparently, she had once said she thought Jerry Brown did a pretty good job in Oakland, and my dad said, "He's a crook." And she said, "Oh." So I said, "You know, just because you married him doesn't mean that you have to accept all of his political views as gospel." And she shrugged and wondered aloud when Dancing with the Stars would be on.
While we were watching Dancing with the Stars, a commercial for a Nivea body lotion aired. I wasn't even really paying attention and didn't look up at it (I was reading), but I gather that it features a girl smoothing lotion on her legs and a guy later showing up and making out with her. This is what I heard my mom say: "Hm. Her leg is ugly. Short and not good. And he looks kind of gay. He doesn't look good enough to kiss girls. I wouldn't buy the Nivea."
Later, we saw Diane Keaton doing a spot for Loreal skincare. My mom commented on how wrinkly she is, and I said, "She doesn't use that. I'm sure she uses La Prairie. Or some other $200 a jar cream." After a beat, my mom said, "She should use more cream."
No one is immune. This may give you some idea of what amplifies the voice in my head that is always telling me what's wrong with how I look.
Finally, I was sitting on the couch with my mom, and Audrey was between us, and my mom leaned forward to reach for something on the coffee table, and Audrey freaked out and barked and lunged at her. My mom threw both her hands up and said, "Sorry!" I grabbed and scolded Audrey. And I said, "Mom, she looked like she was going to bite your face. You don't need to apologize to her. You should protect yourself." And she said, "No. If she would have tried to bite my face, I would have picked her up and thrown her over the couch." Audrey is a little six-pound thing and would probably have broken two of her legs if thrown in that manner. So that's awesome. When I told Beulah this story, she laughed and laughed. But now that I'm writing it out, it seems less funny.

Hooray?

I was driving back from San Diego the other night, and Adam and I were chatting about the upcoming mid-term elections. We were agreeing on the importance of electoral reform. I think that -- if we are ever going to make a real dent in the problem of voter participation and also begin to undo some of the disillusionment created by the last two presidential elections -- the electoral process needs to be overhauled so that it is possible for a layperson to actually understand how it works. The way we do it now, I don't think I would be able to audit my precinct, much less a national election, even if I was given the chance to do it. I don't really know what's supposed to happen. I think Adam agreed with me, if I recall correctly, and he went further to talk about the problem of disenfranchisement among the poor and immigrant populations. He was talking about how requiring a driver's license would disenfranchise the very poor in particular, as they are less likely to have such identification (correct me if I'm wrong, Adam), and that previous leadership would never allow such a requirement to be imposed. And, while I completely agree that we need to make certain that one party does not seize or maintain power expressly by keeping the groups who are likely to vote against them from getting their ballots in the ballot boxes, I had to admit to him that I'm growing more and more tired of being a member of the party that relies on the poor and immigrant populations to win. Because like it or not, the poor and immigrant populations are generally less educated and have less influence, and needing them to come out to the polls en masse in order to win has begun to make me feel like we're riding some sort of Democratic short bus. What we need is for the white, affluent, English-speaking citizens to vote on our side, too. What we need is for more people to give a shit about more than just themselves and for Democratic campaigns to call out and trump the six-year-long keg stand that has been taking place in the Oval Office since the hanging chad became a part of the cultural lexicon. Because that seems to be the key policy-making difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republican policies -- that decimate social services, line the pockets of the richest of the rich, foresake the environment, protect the assets of the largest corporations, chip away at healthcare and educational infrastructures, and pay the robber barons of the war machine instead of the soldiers at war -- seem to have one overarching value, and that is that these policies are plainly shortsighted and don't consider the plight of future generations at all. And Republican voters have gone to the polls repeatedly and reiterated this value. "I don't care about the environment. Let them worry about it when I'm gone. I don't want the estate of my wealthy family to be taxed. Let me spend that dough now, and fuck you, schools. I don't care what the rest of the globe thinks of us. I won't be alive to need their help in the next international crisis. Plus, when am I ever going to France? I don't want to pay teachers a decent wage or give public schools the funding they need. I won't be around to be robbed, raped, and murdered by the kids who don't get the proper education. I don't want women to be able to have abortions, because that makes me feel bad NOW. Instead, I want to force them to have their babies and then just not fund the social programs that will help them raise those babies with the proper healthcare and education, because that will happen LATER, and I won't be watching when it does. I'll probably be in Montserrat."

And then the election happened.

And I'm happy to say that I'm encouraged today. For the first time since November of 2000, I'm encouraged. I'm hopeful that a Democratic Congress can restore some sanity in a system much in need of it. I was never terribly partisan before the 2000 election. I never felt I had to be. But I almost feel as if the divisive partisan tactics of the Republican campaign engineers backfired on them this time. Because I would have voted a straight Democratic ticket, no matter who had been running, just to try and restore the balance of power. Which means the issues are lost and the conscience of the voters is lost, and that is a scary precipice to be perched on. I voted this time in the spirit of triage, but I really look forward to being able to vote one day soon armed with just my intellect and powers of reason.

I don't think the mandate of the voters can be selectively honored. But I wouldn't be surprised if Republicans choose to instead find another way to say "mandate."

I echo Adam's sentiment: "I haven't been this hopeful since Bill Clinton."

I'm happy for my party, and I pray they don't fuck it up.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.

I voted. Did you? If you did, (a) bravo, and (b) send me a photo of your "I Voted" sticker presented in some interesting fashion. I will do something with it. And maybe reward you with something for your participation. Maybe.

P.S. If you're the sort that expects access to private photos, you'll have to specify that. And I will take any such notification under advisement.

Epicurean Exercises

I don't cook as often as I should. I really enjoy it. And I'm not bad. In recent weeks, I've played in the kitchen a few times. But tonight, I really went to town. I had shopped yesterday with the intention of making risotto, and I did that. But I also had some chicken breasts to cook, so I made something up for those, too. I didn't name my dishes; I'm not some affected egomaniac and/or professional chef. But I can tell you what I put in them, if you like.

The risotto contained crimini mushrooms, radicchio, and asparagus with parmigiano reggiano and a Dutch cheese called parrano. Onions, garlic, butter, salt, of course. And organic free range chicken broth. I used champagne instead of cooking wine, Italian cream instead of half and half. And I made far too much, which is something I do.

I cooked the chicken with onions, garlic, butter, olive oil, salt, a little bouillon, and balsamic vinegar. After cooking it all down to mostly caramelized, I added chopped tomatoes and crushed red pepper. I don't even know what I intend to do with the chicken dish, but I tasted it before putting it in plastic storage, and it was super great.

I sipped champagne while I was cooking; I didn't have an open bottle to use, and I don't endorse waste. The Fugitive was/is playing on the television, and I am happy to report that this film still holds up, if you ask me. And it's also a fine example of a successful feature film adaptation of a beloved (and good) television series. Which teaches me this: Not everything has to be ruined.

I haven't actually written much lately. Here anyway. Just a lot of list-making and filling in of blanks. Maybe I will write something tutti frutti before I turn in. I have a lot of champagne to drink.

P.S. I'm drinking Veuve Clicquot from the bottle. The only thing more ghetto would be drinking it with a crazy straw. And I don't have one.

Another conversation with Simon.
I was chatting with my brilliant friend Simon from Australia again. See?
Simon: We have the worst national anthem in existence. Mary: I don't think I know it. But ours is pretty crap. Simon: No way! Yours rocks. Mary: Bah. You're just used to it. Mary: Nearly no one can sing it well. Mary: And the words are lame. Simon: Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, Simon: What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Simon: Genius. Simon: Germany, Germany above all,           above everything in the world,           when always, for protection,           we stand together as brothers. (Germany)           Let's go children of the fatherland,           The day of glory has arrived!           Against us tyranny's           Bloody flag is raised! (France) Simon: Australians all let us rejoice,           For we are young and free;           We've golden soil and wealth for toil;           Our home is girt by sea; Simon: ^ crap Simon: Nobody even knows the words to it. Mary: Yeah. I guess we rule. But the clauses are all over the place. Simon: At least it's poetic. Simon: Ours is just bureaucratic. Mary: I guess. That's true. Most anthems sound like college fight songs. Simon: probably because they were composed during wars. Simon: I learned today that "slogan" is gaelic for war cry. Mary: So was ours. Simon: Ours was composed when we stopped being a British colony, so it was probably written by a committee. Simon: If they replaced it with a new one, it would probably have something about fully sick Mazdas. Simon: Iraq's is pretty lame in English. Simon: I heard Germany's national anthem used to be a drinking song. Simon: they removed the verse about booze, women, and singing.
I always learn so much.

The cream on the mashed potatoes.

A few weeks ago, Sarah and Paul were in Anaheim and wanted to visit Disneyland, so I drove down to shepherd them around on a Saturday night. It would have been much more fun had it not been Gay Days. Not because we have any problem with gay people, make no mistake. I love me some gays. Truly. It's that I have never been to Disneyland that late at night and seen it that crowded. As a result, we didn't really get to do much but wait in line and elbow our way through red-shirted crowds. But we still had a good time. And while we were waiting in line for Space Mountain, Paul was teaching me some of the idioms that the Swedes have that approximate ours. For instance, where we would say "bite the bullet" to reference the act of enduring something painful or unpleasant, Swedes would say the equivalent of "bite the sour apple." And where we might call it "icing on the cake" when something great comes after something already very good, Swedes would call that the "cream on the mashed potatoes." I love this. And I loved the fact that, even after our somewhat stressful Disneyland visit, Paul sent me a lovely email and told me that I was in fact the cream on the mashed potatoes.

While I'm on this language instruction kick, here are some additional Swedish idioms you can use at your leisure or when you're hanging out with Paul.

"The important thing [here] is to get away alive."
Det gäller att klara sig undan med livet i behåll.
It shrieks to clear one self out of the road with the waist intact.

To totally abandon someone.
Lämna någon vind för våg.
Leave someone wind by wave.

A cheerful expression of surprise.
Hej hopp i blåbärsskogen!
Hello, jump in the blueberry forest!

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
Bättre en fågel i handen än tio i skogen.
Better a bird in your hand than ten in the woods.

"Don't count your chickens until they hatch."
Ropa inte hej förräns du är över bäcken.
Don't yell hi until you're over the stream.

A party that got out of hand.
Det var ett riktigt sjoslag.
It was a real sea-battle.

"You're in deep shit now."
Nu är det kokta fläsket stekt.
Now the boiled pork is fried.

"Run like hell."
Lägga benen på ryggen.
Put your legs on your back.

To make things worse
Att lägga lök på laxen
To put onion on the salmon

"Calm down."
Kiss och gå lägg dig!
Pee and go lie down!

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."
Det är skönt med den goa värmen, sa kärringen när stugan brann.
It is nice with the heat, said the old woman when the house was on fire.

"Now, you've done it!"
Nu har du trampat i klaveret.
Now you have stepped into the accordion!

To come into a lot of money
Lägga rabarber på klöver.
Lay down rhubarbs on clover.

Talking nonsense
Han pratar i nattmössan.
He is talking in his nighthat.

"Close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades."
Nära är bara bra med en atombomb.
Close is only good with an A-bomb.

"Good gracious!"
Milda makter!
Mild forces!

"It doesn't work."
Den är paj.
It's pie.

"Fat chance!"
Inte en sportmössa!
Not a sportscap!

"You'r talking out of your ass."
Nu är du ute och cyklar.
Now you are out and cycling.

"Caught with his pants down"
Med skägget i brevlådan
With his beard in the mailbox

"No kidding!"
Dra mig på en tallpinnevagn.
Drag me on a pine-twig wagon.

"You've really made a fool of yourself."
Nu har du skitit i det blå skåpet.
Now you've shit in the blue cupboard.

I love etymology. And vulgarity.

I guess I say "skeevy" a lot. According to Rob. I hadn't noticed. Maybe I've just been telling a larger proportion of stories lately with skeevs in starring roles. But I thought about it today, and I wondered if "skeevy" comes from the Italian "schifo," which I understand to mean "disgusting." So I put the Internet to use -- and counted myself briefly grateful that I no longer live in the days when wondering something like this might force me to (a) go to a library, (b) ask a friend who would know the answer, or (c) call a radio station -- and didn't really find my answer but did find giant pleasure in reading the various insults, swears, and narrative declarations of vulgarity that it made available to me. (In that last clause, "it" meant "the Internet," as previously referenced, but the long, emdash-encased section may have made that ambiguous.) See for yourself.

Andate tutti a 'fanculo!
You can all go fuck yourselves!

Nessuno me lo ficca in culo!
Nobody fucks me up the ass!

Tua madre si da per niente!
Your mother gives it away!

Te lo tronco nel culo.
I'll fill in your ass.

Vaffanculo a Lei, la sua moglie, e' la sua madre. Lei e' un cafone stronzo. Io non mangio in questo merdaio! Vada via in culo!
You, sir, go fuck yourself--and your wife and your mother. You are a common turd! I'm not going to eat in this shithouse. Fuck you!

Ti metto il cazzo in culo e te lo faccio uscire dalla bocca.
If I put my dick in your ass, it's going to come out your mouth.

La tua madre puzza di pesce.
Your mom smells like fish.

Caccati in mano e prenditi a schiaffi.
Shit in your hand and hit yourself.

Il tuo cazzo è un brufolo.
Your dick's a pimple.

Sei una busta de piscio.
You're a fucking piss bag.

Sei una bolla de sborra.
You're a sperm-ball.

Cachi il cazzo.
You're shitting on my dick.

Uno che va in culo a sua madre.
That one ass-fucks its mother.

Non vale un cazzo
Not worth cum, i.e., useless

Ditalino
Female masturbation, i.e., finger banging

Ciuccia cazzi
Dick sucker

Cazzo di cane
You did that work very badly. (literally: a dog's dick)

Porca la Miseria/Porca Miseria)
Pig Misery!

Boia faus!
Dishonest executioner!

Mille cazzi nel tuo culo
A thousand dicks in your ass

Se il cazzo avesse le ali, la tua fica sarebbe un aereoporto.
If a dick had wings, your pussy would be an airport.

Gesu e un cornuto.
Jesus is a cuckold.

Va funcuolo Dio and tutte e santi.
Fuck Christ and all the saints.

Magic Magic Magic
Friday night, I went to The Magic Castle to help my friends Kevin and Chris celebrate their birthdays. I am not a fan of magic. I find the melodrama and lavish hand gestures to be the height of overdoing it. I especially don't like the Vegas-y variety of comedy and magic that The Magic Castle seems to be famous for. (Incidentally, is it The Magic CASTLE or The MAGIC Castle?) The first time I ever went to The Magic Castle, I had only lived here for a month or two, and my office had our Christmas party there. I had dinner, and then left before the magic show. I had tickets to see Tenacious D, Naked Trucker, and Spinal Tap at the House of Blues that night. And that was far more magical a prospect.
I did actually like the Close-Up Room, where the show is more about sleight of hand, which I can truthfully appreciate very much. Our magician in the Close-Up Room was a lady named Suzanne, and she was really good. And not at all covered in glitter or self-tanner. I think sleight of hand and magic are very different things. Where one of them is a good and cool thing and the other is a thing that makes me want to punch my fist through a hat. And frankly, it really comes down more to the issue of whether or not you are really good at it or whether you have one of the two hairdos magicians are apparently allowed to have. The guy in the Parlor of Prestidigitation was not funny, not skillful, and not someone who is not a hunchback. I had had enough to drink that I was probably not a very gracious audience member. And a fat guy glared at me at one point because I was having a good time but not in synch with the rest of the group. I think we also annoyed the young lady whose bosom would have received a marriage proposal from Chris, had she not liked magic so much.
I also don't like being asked to participate in the show. I don't even like it when this happens at comedy shows. Or at restaurants with especially gregarious servers. I hate being put on the spot. And I'm always convinced I will do the wrong thing. So I was relieved to not be wrangled into doing anything to support the magic. I had warned Kevin before the event that there was no way I was going up on stage for anything. Especially not to be sawed in half. It also occurred to me that women are always more at risk at these events for the simple reason that women are considered less likely to be -- or worse to think they are -- funny. So you get a lady up on stage to hold your tablecloth, sprig of baby's breath, and bewitched hat stand and you can do your schtick uninterrupted. You get a dude up on stage, and there's a very good chance he will find himself a chance to do a one man interpretive scene from Top Gun. (Probably either the You've Lost that Lovin' Feeling part or the part where Goose dies.) So maybe I resent this tradition.
In the end, I had a nice enough time. A lot of whiskey helps. I also started out the evening with a Campari soda at dinner, and I haven't had one of those in years and years. It was nostalgic and good. And afterwards, Kevin and Chris and I went to the 101 Coffee Shop and argued about my Guitar Hero skills (though Chris has never played) and whether or not mac and cheese should be soupy. I'm a fan of the crispy/chewy variety. Chris prefers the soupy version. But everyone agreed on the onion rings. Although the boys ate theirs with mustard, while I ate mine with ranch. And I drove home quite certain I would never need to -- nor should I -- ever eat again.

The High Ground

My front door step is unfortunate. If you are a gentleman leaving my apartment at some point, and I am standing there a step or two above you, seeing you off, chances are you will stumble a little or have to turn too suddenly. You will look slightly clumsy and slightly embarrassed. And I will either find it endearing or unfortunate. I'm not saying ladies never have cause to leave my apartment. I just think that it's the gentleman who is more prone to want to leave a dashing impression, and it's nearly impossible to accomplish if my front door is involved.

The Fed Ex guy who needs only stand there, awaiting my signature, accepting my apology for my dog's vicious demeanor, exchanging a parcel for my thanks -- he needn't fret. His altitude never changes. And it's more likely he isn't trying to make a memorable exit. Which is maybe why I'm the one who is usually flustered and wishing I had put on lipstick.

I watched Shop Girl tonight. It has a strange pace and an oddly fluid but seemingly motionless soundtrack. I felt as if I was holding my breath for the length of the film. No wonder I have a headache.

All in the timing.

Congratulations, Michael. An industrial fog machine has made certain that no one will be able to follow you. You win. With distinction.

It's probably a whiskey tumor.

Last night, my friend Tim's short film Slideshow screened at Garage Comedy. I took all the photos featured in the film, and the film is very funny, so I felt especially proud when I saw my name come up in the credits. I remember the day we shot those photos. It was a long, long day and included me getting a little toy dog out of a coin-op machine. There were many characters to choose from. A variety of breeds. Even one named "Duchess" who was nursing pups, but you had to get the pups separately. But the one I wanted stood out.

His name was "Craps," and he's in a shitting position. Which I can't believe was ever mass-manufactured. But it only took me three tries and $1.50 to win him, and now no one can ever tell me he doesn't exist.

So that was a fun day, as I recall. And it was already long enough ago that one of us could have had a baby by now. The blasted passage of time. I guess I like getting past the awful things, but the good stuff just whizzes past, too. At least we have this to show for it.



So last night, I went to Garage Comedy. It was a little chilly out. Fall weather that scolds me in advance for the sweater I don't feel like carrying. I was tired and out of sorts all day. Too many cocktails and too little sleep. For days and days. I haven't been to El Cid for a while. Mondays have become problematic and vied for. I always end up saying no to at least two things. But good ol' Garage Comedy. I always see so many friends there. I am a fan of that.



That above photo is a link to the photo set from last night. If you are not my friend on Flickr, you won't be able to see them. If you would like to become my friend on Flickr, click this link and use your powers of instruction-following and deductive reasoning to make it come to pass.

El Cid kicked us all out before midnight, which was unexpected and unwelcome. The persistent partygoers among us went over to 4100 and continued doing what it is we do, just in more dimly lit surroundings and with more places to sit.

All in all, I drank too much. I smoked too much. I have limited my hopes today to becoming hydrated.

The dream is still alive.

This morning, after a late night of applauding comedy, performing comedy, and then drinking more than was necessary, I took Audrey for a walk, feeling still slightly drunk and glad for the cloud cover. When we got to the east end of my block, an adorable little girl who lives on the corner was peeking out her kitchen door. She was wearing what may have been pajamas. She's a little short-haired thing with lovely manners and a seemingly jocular disposition. I've seen her outside with her father or with her nanny. She is a doll. So today, as Audrey and I walked past, she said, "Is that your dog?" I said it was. And she said, "What's her name?" And I said it was Audrey. And she said, "And what's YOUR name?" And I said, "Mary." Then I asked, "And what's your name?" And she had to say it a couple of times before I understood she was telling me her name is Princess Leia. I said that was a lovely name and that I was pleased to meet her. And I was.

Now, I suppose it's possible that her parents actually named her Princess Leia, in which case, it is their persisting awesome I'm proclaiming. But I suspect her name is probably not Princess Leia, making it all the more wonderful that she would want it to be. She can't be more than four or five. That she already has the presence of mind to wish she was able to see Alderaan one last time -- well, I just think that's super. The only thing that might have trounced that would have been for her to say her name was Han Solo. Because, gender oppression aside, that's who everyone wishes they could be.