Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Aww...
I had something sweet happen while picking up B1 from school -- one of the older moms came over and said "I wanted to say that I see you walking your boy to school every day, and he just looks so happy to be with you. Just thought I'd tellya." I thanked her. It was a nice thing to say, quite out of the blue, left me a little bashful. Made my day.
My Darling Clementine
Happy to report that my clementine sapling is doing fine, and even has some new sprigs. I need to dust off its leaves, clearly, but it's doing well. I'll get it a new pot in the summer. I'm still so pleased that it's doing as well as it has, but I usually have good luck with plants...
Now What?
Alright, so I have finalized three novels this winter (to me, "finalizing" is different from "finished" -- I finished those books before this winter, but they weren't "finalized" -- that is, buffed and polished and publisher-ready to my satisfaction -- make sense?), and, for the moment, I'm unsure which piece to work on, next. I have three strong contenders in mind at the moment, but can't really decide which to finalize, next. Eeenie, meenie....
I'm still amazed how quickly the snow has melted; we got so much snow in the Blizzard of '11 (and snow on top of THAT snow), but a warm spell kicks in and it's gone. Amazing. But it's still way too early to put on the shorts -- I really don't rule out snow in Chicago until June.
My Turbotax program arrived yesterday. Good times, that. I'll probably work on that tonight, since Exene'll have the boys, and I'll be able to work on that undisturbed. This year's will be complicated, given that 2010 was THE year Exene and I split (that is, when she finally got a job). 2010 would be the Year of Gnashing Teeth for me. Lordy. So, one last gnash of the teeth as I hash out the tax stuff, then wash my hands of it.
B1 had to do a "blue paper" -- basically, a paper about something that made him sad. He wrote about the loss of Newt, which was really his first experience with death (since Jinx died when he was maybe four, I don't think that quite stuck with him -- plus, Jinx was a mean cat, versus Newt, who was always sweet-natured). Anyway, he wrote about it in his fashion, and drew a sketch of Newt from an old photograph of him (a friend shot a great portrait of Newt back in '92, which I still have). It was bittersweet to see him revisit this sense of loss. He said he likes cats, would get one someday. That's kind of sweet to me, too -- I think B1 is more of a cat person, and B2 is definitely a dog person (B2 keeps nagging for me to get a bulldog; he loves bulldogs [tee hee, so do I]). But it's funny to see B1 express his aesthetic.
Speaking of aesthetics, B2 wanted to watch "Wall-E" yesterday, and he noticed a parallel between the Axiom tech in that movie and the stuff in "Portal" -- and it's very true: the red eyes, the stark white with black highlights -- B2 kept saying "It's like PORTAL, Daddy." Hahah! B2 is very aesthetically attuned. He's definitely going to be the performer and the creative type -- he's got such a strong sense of theatricality and imagination. He'll set up these Lego dioramas and will play meticulously with them, setting up scenes with them with such care. It's charming to watch that young imagination at play.
I have nine screenplay ideas I need to develop. I perennially wrestle with screenplays -- while I do write in a cinematic style, that doesn't lend itself to a ready comfort with screenplay-writing. But the ideas I have simply would work better as screenplays than as books or short stories; they just would. So, I'm trying to do honor to the work by presenting it in the format that would work best with it. Seven Horror, one Thriller, and one SF love story.
I'm still amazed how quickly the snow has melted; we got so much snow in the Blizzard of '11 (and snow on top of THAT snow), but a warm spell kicks in and it's gone. Amazing. But it's still way too early to put on the shorts -- I really don't rule out snow in Chicago until June.
My Turbotax program arrived yesterday. Good times, that. I'll probably work on that tonight, since Exene'll have the boys, and I'll be able to work on that undisturbed. This year's will be complicated, given that 2010 was THE year Exene and I split (that is, when she finally got a job). 2010 would be the Year of Gnashing Teeth for me. Lordy. So, one last gnash of the teeth as I hash out the tax stuff, then wash my hands of it.
B1 had to do a "blue paper" -- basically, a paper about something that made him sad. He wrote about the loss of Newt, which was really his first experience with death (since Jinx died when he was maybe four, I don't think that quite stuck with him -- plus, Jinx was a mean cat, versus Newt, who was always sweet-natured). Anyway, he wrote about it in his fashion, and drew a sketch of Newt from an old photograph of him (a friend shot a great portrait of Newt back in '92, which I still have). It was bittersweet to see him revisit this sense of loss. He said he likes cats, would get one someday. That's kind of sweet to me, too -- I think B1 is more of a cat person, and B2 is definitely a dog person (B2 keeps nagging for me to get a bulldog; he loves bulldogs [tee hee, so do I]). But it's funny to see B1 express his aesthetic.
Speaking of aesthetics, B2 wanted to watch "Wall-E" yesterday, and he noticed a parallel between the Axiom tech in that movie and the stuff in "Portal" -- and it's very true: the red eyes, the stark white with black highlights -- B2 kept saying "It's like PORTAL, Daddy." Hahah! B2 is very aesthetically attuned. He's definitely going to be the performer and the creative type -- he's got such a strong sense of theatricality and imagination. He'll set up these Lego dioramas and will play meticulously with them, setting up scenes with them with such care. It's charming to watch that young imagination at play.
I have nine screenplay ideas I need to develop. I perennially wrestle with screenplays -- while I do write in a cinematic style, that doesn't lend itself to a ready comfort with screenplay-writing. But the ideas I have simply would work better as screenplays than as books or short stories; they just would. So, I'm trying to do honor to the work by presenting it in the format that would work best with it. Seven Horror, one Thriller, and one SF love story.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Caught with one's pants down
Oh, man. Something funny happened this evening. I swapped the day with Exene, because she was going to be super-late with work, so I took the boys tonight. Anyway, I was minding the boys, wearing my TAB cola t-shirt and some boxer shorts, when there was a knock on the door, and the boys started raising a ruckus, and I thought it was going to be Exene with some unexpected issue, but it turned out to be a candidate for Ward Alderman and one of his supporters, doing a door-to-door thing with prospective voters!
So, I'm standing there in my doorway, in my boxers, talking about education reform with a would-be alderman. He was asking me what issues mattered to me, and I pointed out how the TIF system was a wreck and needed to be fixed, and so he shpieled on that a bit. Then one of my neighbors came home from work, down the hall, and saw me talking to these guys. I felt like saying "Hey, we're talking about education reform! Just leave your pants and join in the debate!" When they left, the supporter said "Btw, love the t-shirt." Bahah!
I'm happy to report that I can smoothly debate city politics with complete strangers while in my boxers.
So, I'm standing there in my doorway, in my boxers, talking about education reform with a would-be alderman. He was asking me what issues mattered to me, and I pointed out how the TIF system was a wreck and needed to be fixed, and so he shpieled on that a bit. Then one of my neighbors came home from work, down the hall, and saw me talking to these guys. I felt like saying "Hey, we're talking about education reform! Just leave your pants and join in the debate!" When they left, the supporter said "Btw, love the t-shirt." Bahah!
I'm happy to report that I can smoothly debate city politics with complete strangers while in my boxers.
The Call of the Mild
A visual representation of the dichotomy between the romantic's conception of love, and the realist's, below...
 |
| The Romantic. |
 |
| The Realist. |
Heart-Shaped Box
My creation of valentines for the boys for school went well; B1's classmates loved them, and B2 talked about the "millions" of valentines he got (really, more like a couple of dozen, but for him, everything good is in the millions).
Valentine's Day has come and gone. No doubt the cards are sold, the candies bought. I cashed a check at the bank and the teller asked me "Oooh, something for Valentine's Day?" and I scoffed: "Yeah, right."
I figure I won't blather about love for the rest of the month; leading up to Valentine's Day is more than enough. Suffice to say that romantics understand love; realists and pragmatists never truly will -- it's like trying to compare wildlife with livestock, and finding equivalency -- romantics love wildlife; realists love livestock. Romantics get the wild nature of love; realists run from it, are haunted and frightened by it. Realists try to tame and train love, to harness its power and put it to work for them, which might reap dividends for them at some point, but at the cost of passion and other pleasures of true romance. Romantics never presume to try to tame love, but let it roam freely through their worlds. Which is well and good, except when love upends their worlds, or when it breaks their hearts. But true romantics accept that as a price to be paid for knowing the full joys and agonies of love -- to feel deeply is to feel both pain and pleasure keenly; it is integral to the artistic temperament. The pain can be staggering, but the pleasures of it can be no less intense, if truly felt. To the realist, the logic is apparent: why go through all of that trouble, why travel through the wilderness when there's a perfectly good, paved road right there? Avoid pain and uncertainty, reap rewards, turn the heart into a metronome, counting out the beats until inevitable death. To them, "the road less traveled" is less-traveled for a reason. I understand why a realist might do that; it's their choice, and it may, in fact, be a logical and even rational choice -- not terribly exciting or interesting, but it's safe, if unimaginative. I'm just not a realist, myself. If I were a realist, I wouldn't be a very good writer, though, now would I?
Anyway, onward and upward. Spring is teasing its way into the weather, here. I refuse to accept Spring in Chicago until, I dunno, May. ;)
Truly, we get warm spells sometimes like this, and then when you think it's time to pack away the Winter gear, a freak storm comes in and wallops you. So, I'm not holding my breath over this warm trend of the moment.
Valentine's Day has come and gone. No doubt the cards are sold, the candies bought. I cashed a check at the bank and the teller asked me "Oooh, something for Valentine's Day?" and I scoffed: "Yeah, right."
I figure I won't blather about love for the rest of the month; leading up to Valentine's Day is more than enough. Suffice to say that romantics understand love; realists and pragmatists never truly will -- it's like trying to compare wildlife with livestock, and finding equivalency -- romantics love wildlife; realists love livestock. Romantics get the wild nature of love; realists run from it, are haunted and frightened by it. Realists try to tame and train love, to harness its power and put it to work for them, which might reap dividends for them at some point, but at the cost of passion and other pleasures of true romance. Romantics never presume to try to tame love, but let it roam freely through their worlds. Which is well and good, except when love upends their worlds, or when it breaks their hearts. But true romantics accept that as a price to be paid for knowing the full joys and agonies of love -- to feel deeply is to feel both pain and pleasure keenly; it is integral to the artistic temperament. The pain can be staggering, but the pleasures of it can be no less intense, if truly felt. To the realist, the logic is apparent: why go through all of that trouble, why travel through the wilderness when there's a perfectly good, paved road right there? Avoid pain and uncertainty, reap rewards, turn the heart into a metronome, counting out the beats until inevitable death. To them, "the road less traveled" is less-traveled for a reason. I understand why a realist might do that; it's their choice, and it may, in fact, be a logical and even rational choice -- not terribly exciting or interesting, but it's safe, if unimaginative. I'm just not a realist, myself. If I were a realist, I wouldn't be a very good writer, though, now would I?
Anyway, onward and upward. Spring is teasing its way into the weather, here. I refuse to accept Spring in Chicago until, I dunno, May. ;)
Truly, we get warm spells sometimes like this, and then when you think it's time to pack away the Winter gear, a freak storm comes in and wallops you. So, I'm not holding my breath over this warm trend of the moment.
Monday, February 14, 2011
The Look of Love
Need another video...
ABC, "The Look of Love"
...something to capture the absurdity of love, and of 80s videos, in general. Still, ABC cranked out nice dance-pop tunes in their prime.
ABC, "The Look of Love"
...something to capture the absurdity of love, and of 80s videos, in general. Still, ABC cranked out nice dance-pop tunes in their prime.
Movies
This is kind of amusing -- Five Movies to Cure You of Valentine's Day. I like the line the writer wrote, saying "Maybe love is both awesome and sucky." Bahah! Glad "Valentine" wasn't included in this list, although it would've been funny if it had been, since it was just a crappy slasher movie.
This is also amusing: The Dark Origins of Valentine's Day.
This is also amusing: The Dark Origins of Valentine's Day.
Happy Valentine's Day
I don't like OutKast overmuch, but this one is topical, ergo, I post it. I like his pink-hued Desert Eagle...
Slushy
Man, the temperatures went up a little bit (not even that much; it's still cold, just not AS cold) and so much of that deluge of snow is melting, turning the city into slush-and-puddle central. I'm just surprised that so much snow is melting so quickly.
I made valentines for the boys to take to school, which was fun. B2 loves playing with art materials (making a mess, of course). B1 just kinda rolls with it.
I made valentines for the boys to take to school, which was fun. B2 loves playing with art materials (making a mess, of course). B1 just kinda rolls with it.
Love Song
This is a nice, acoustic version of The Cure's "Love Song"...
The Companion Cube from "Portal" really comes into its own on Valentine's Day...
The Companion Cube from "Portal" really comes into its own on Valentine's Day...
Happy Valentine's Day!
Someecards always crack me up with their Valentine's Day e-cards. I'm sure they brainstorm cards like these and just slay themselves. These are some of my favorites of this year's batch...
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