house of flying dogs I mean daggers

Sometimes, our house seems to have dogs pretty much everywhere...that's okay, there are so many dogs who live with us and three of them are considered "large". Cowgirl, the terrier mixette seems like a toy breed compared to chubby Roy Bean and tall, thin, Keni. We love them all very much, I'm not complaining. Still, when it rains, they are very much "with us".

Tonight my daughter asked if I wanted to go see a movie with her. This is rare. She's 17.,.so I jumped on it and dashed for a look at the web for movie times. We only go to movies at the Alamo or the Dobie because I have a "thing" about people talking or walking around during movies and at most multiplexes, people talk and walk a lot. We decided to see Million Dollar Baby at the Alamo, cause we were also pretty hungry.
I haven't had 2 minutes alone with Ace in ages and there was so much to catch up on, the musical, her love life, how she feels about the Iraqi elections, everything. We got to the theatre 10 minutes before movie time and the show was sold out. As luck would have it, there were plenty of tickets to House of Flying Daggers.

This movie was breathtaking...at first I had a few flashbacks from when I tried Kung Fu and got some knee problems, and from when I tried another martial arts form and never quite mastered the spin kick...but that passed quickly.

Like most great films about wars and old alliances this was a love story. Twists and turns and fast steeds and bamboo forests and aspens and autumn and flying daggers- this is an epic, a beautiful treat of an epic. Go see it on the big screen. Go to the Alamo and enjoy dinner while you watch. Take a teenager with you.

It was a very good week overall...Shot a bit of the new homeless doc. with two wonderful gentlemen. Both of them are artists, both of them are amazing and interesting and have many stories to tell. When I told one of my homeless friends that we were out of lunches he brought back about 8 boxes of terra chip samples givn to him by some guy who was doing a demo down town. He brought box after box after box. That was pretty sweet.
Buckner came over and we recorded the narration track for Rescue Me. He'll start on the final post sound on Monday morning! There are many people who came together and made this project happen. The screening is 2/10/05. We'll be ready.

I was googled!

I was googled by an ex boyfriend and he actually emailed me.

I know I should probably protect myself from such googling... I mean, my little cobweb is not that safe. A friend of mine noted that I even have address and phone number on it. (oops). In 99 or so, identity theft wasn't such a threat, spam was something we ate for lunch as a kid, and only on special occasions. Googling was...googling was not even a word. To google someone might mean to tickle them, or tag them, or scare them "google google".

I googled myself to find out what I would find. I found a joke that I sent to someone in the mid 90's on some joke mailing list that someone archived. I found a posting I put on the AFS list in 98. I found my web sites, both of them.

I have no secrets.

I think it's pretty wonderful that I can look back on all that time and space between now and July of 92 , when this particular friendship ended and see how it all turned out fine, just like my best friend said it would (and she's still my best friend).

And now, I sit in my happy, trembling life, my daughter sings a Patty Griffin tune in her room, the moon is full or nearly so and all is well.

Monday...1/24

A British psychologist declared that today, this clear, bright Monday, is the most depressing day of the year: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6847012/
Apparently this is the day when it all sinks in, when the dark, gray of winter settles in hard and people's Seratonin levels are plunge.

That's one reason I moved back to Texas. Today it is sunny, bright and warm. The dogs are frisky and crazy, the air is cool and brisk, just cold enough to make us all feel a bit Fallish. I do love the quiet of snow. I am glad I once lived in a place where I got to slide down snowy hills and fall into soft mounds of snow and build snowmen with my then young daughter.

Today, I'm glad for the sun.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell: Book Review

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell
This book is large, thick, about 6 inches of roughened pages and binding. When it first arrived in it's brown rectangular box (I'd been looking for it in the local library for weeks, but it wasn't available, so I ordered it from Amazon, a rare but luscious investment.) the weight of it required me to use both hands to bring it inside. A no-nonsense cover, all black and write, resembles an old fashioned book of secrets, or spells, (Those British are so proud of their English traditions, they think civility and literature began in England. ) consisting of no less than three volumes and almost 800 pages of tiny typeset. (Luckily, I found a pair of reading glasses someone had left at my house one day quite by accident. These became indispensable.)

From the first page, readers began a delicious, very British, study of the history of English magic and the story of two, no, three men, who were most crucial to it's development. Through the adventures of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell ( I wonder how long those two argued over who would be listed first?), one a studied magician, one drawn to the craft by laziness and a major brush with destiny, we learn much about English history that is left out of most history texts, we are treated to a rare glimpse of the world of Faerie and their troublesome follies and we learn a few magical basics. Upon finishing the book, I began studying the backyard for signs of fairy roads and my mirrors for shadows, until I made the shocking realization that perhaps this book is just fiction. Perhaps, and I shudder, it's all made up, the made up story of a first time British author who has spent most of her life slaving away in publishing houses making cookbooks.

If that is indeed the truth (assuming I haven't been enchanted), the author does a superb job creating her history of English magic, weaving in mammoth footnotes that make perfect sense down to the last page. The delectable humor throughout the text proves she doesn't take her made-up-world too seriously, as is the fault of many a fantasy writer, and thus bring it all crashing down upon us in one poorly composed sentence. I do love a good fantasy. ( I have read Phillip Pullman, and was a fan of Harry Potter before he became famous.) What sets this book apart from most fantasies is that it reaches to a more intelligent, more astute reader, a reader who loves rich fantasy footnotes, characters for whom things don't always work out, and patterns that follow some predictable paths in fresh ways.

I highly recommend this text. If enchantments and fairies are at work, this review might mean little. If the craft of a first time writer from England created this world, this work stands as one of the best written, longest, most cunning texts I've read in years.

"documentaries take a long time"

That's a quote by my friend and film partner, Kat Candler.

It's true. It's also true that it's still frustrating. You want it to be finished, you want completion, the final stroke of the pen, the wave of a baton, but in the world of digital ones and zeroes, things can change, change and change again.
Then there's dogs, kids, neighbors, work, the homeless and all the myriad distractions. Much conspires against any one having a full day of silent, quiet work. Life.

It's a new year and I have been working on resolutions.
1. Practice being patient in traffic. I have been sorely tested on this more than once. Just today a giant green dragon of an SUV pulled right in front of me, no signal, no warning...just a big fat car with bad manners. I made an indecent finger gesture at the driver, a pony tailed, teen. I need more practice.
2. Stop using "gay" as a description. I do this withough thinking..."you know, the tall guy, he's cute, sweet, great hair, gay and..." or, "no, he's the gay guy who works at the.." This is a personal peeve of mine, one I just decided is a peeve and I think it needs to be stopped, at least by me.


Today was homeless day. I volunteered at the center. It was busy, so many needs for advocacy, prescriptions, housing, and food. We were low on sack lunches, so I winged it. I made pb&j and cheese sandwiches with not quite a loaf of bread, tossed on some carrots and some chips and we all ate together. I like it when that happens. It's more of a fellowship, like a club meeting.

Juan didn't make it in. He's about to lose his place with a roommate and has to secure a new place to live. He has MS, and it will be awhile before his SS kicks in. It's already been a year, he expects it to take another one. At one time, he worked, had a house and a 401K, the illness took all that. Now, he waits for disability funding. R. stopped in. He's finally close to getting a house. He has Parkinson's. Not a good thing for someone who lives on the streets. He's a dear soul. Says he loves me with his whole heart. He is so grateful for the tiny bit I did for him, which was simply to be his advocate.

If just a tiny bit of the funds spent on the inauguration went to provide a little low income housing...how different the world would be for so many. 40 million bucks for a coronation, a coronation for someone who has always "had".

J. didn't show, for our interview session, but that's okay. Stuff happens, more happens when you're homeless. Buses are late, people are mean, etc. Je. did show and I planned to shoot him instead, but after waiting for 2 hours, he forgot and left.

Next week I'll try again.

On my way home, I fed the homless cats. Amy, a fluffy tabby was waiting for me. She is the only feral cat I've ever met who loves to be stroked. She asks for it, lifting up her tail so I'll scratch her at the base of her tail. She even purrs. Maybe she used to be someone's cat, maybe she just decided that people are at their best in small doses. I think it's pretty wonderful that she likes people at all. Even a feral cat can be forgiving.


The number of Tsunami victims went up 70K today. Tomorrow we'll have an offical four more years of Bush.

As my grandmother would say, things are always darkest before the dawn. It can only get better.