So much has been stuffed into my brain the last 48 hours that I can’t think of much other than “sleep” but I can’t sleep right now because my brain feels too stuffed. Right? Right.* Instead I’m going to spend a few minutes writing about movies and then go try to join the spooning that my cats are doing right now on the rug. Sometimes they let me.

Desk Set : watched last Friday w/ Katie & Sky
This movie wasn’t half as fun as I thought it would be. I love me some Katherine Hepburn, or at least I thought I did, but I spent much of this movie confused because she was laughing her crazy head-thrown-back New England laugh and I didn’t understand what what so godamned funny about the plot. Maybe you had to be there. The clothes were great and I took some small pride in the fact that the librarians were better than a machine (even if they were rattling off complex, memorized answers just like robots most of the time). Anyway, this is one of those LIBRARIAN movies that you’re supposed to watch and so I watched it and I think Party Girl should be our group movie if we get to vote on it.

Divorce Italian Style (Divorzio all’italiana if you’re being fancy): watched last night w/ Sky
This movie was hilarious and I really enjoyed that they made a totally hot lady (Fefe’s wife) look “ugly” by giving her a unibrow and a mustache. Those hips were out of this world. Also the weird dubbing was pretty great and I loved all of the clothes and I’d like to live in a castle now.

Visual Acoustics: watched tonight w/ Sky
This film has been selling out @ Northwest Film Forum – so much so that they were showing it in both theaters tonight. It’s a documentary about Julius Shulman, a world famous photographer who is best known for capturing modern architecture in Southern California: Case Study Houses, Palm Springs, etc. He was a swell guy and the documentary had a lot of great footage of him visiting with all sorts of people: previous owners of houses, new owners, and architects. Shulman was a pleasure to watch, and his photographs were amazing. That’s about all that was good about this documentary, though. There were all sorts of woozy special effects, random Jib Jab style animations, a not very cohesive story line and weird edits throughout. It seemed more like a really long Power Point presentation (with some video thrown in) than a film. A few times they didn’t give names of people who were talking until they’d been on screen for a minute or so – super frustrating.

It wasn’t an awful documentary, but it wasn’t a good one, either. I’m a connoisseur of the documentary film, and it makes me cranky when I see half of Seattle lining up to see a mediocre one when there are so many AMAZING ones slipping under the radar every day. I also take issue with people who assume documentary making is easy, or easier than making a fiction film.

* Brain is stuffed due to entirely new job in entirely new place which I don’t really want to talk about because I’m still trying to reconcile myself with the fact that I have an entirely new job in an entirely new place

Last weekend I jetted down to lovely C-A-L-I to visit my bestie, Jaime. She’s subletting a sweet piece of house, perched over the estuary that runs through Alameda. It was like staying on a houseboat, only the houseboat was attached.

I didn’t get the sunshiney Valhalla I’d expected since it rained 90% of the time I was there, but that was fine. I caught some sunshine my first morning there as we drank boozy coffee on the huge porch. When it did rain, it was often in big, gusty sheets; watching the rain pound the water outside the window was fun, but seeing the poor birdies trying to fly against the wind wasn’t so great. Poor seagulls.

We had some excellent meals, including a lunch at the new branch of Burma Superstar which was just blocks from Jaime’s place! We also had some heavenly burritos and some ridiculously delicious french macaroons.

We watched two scary movies: Orphan and Paranormal Activity. We watched Orphan because it featured our mutual movie boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard. The plot to this one was fun and creative and I enjoyed that they took the time to build up a good story with interesting characters. Paranormal Activity wasn’t half as scary as I’d set it up to be, but it did give me the willies in a few spots. We also watched Up in the Air. I found it kinda depressing, but there were some interesting moments.

The last night I was there we stopped by the house of a friend of Jaime’s: we had some lovely wine (okay a lot of lovely wine) and hung out with the couple and their 9-year-old son who RULED. So often kids are left at home when parents go to visit or put down to sleep in a bedroom when company is over, but this family had their son hanging out with us for most of the evening. It was so fun – we played Spongebob SORRY! and drew pictures and giggled and played hide and seek. Seeing a well adjusted kid enjoying time with his parents yet letting them be adults and have conversations was pretty awesome.

We had plans to visit San Francisco and maybe drop in on some friends, but Monday morning we both woke with awful hangovers. I guess we aren’t 23 anymore. The storm was raging outside so we ordered pizza delivery and sat around chatting. We never left the 94501 zip code and I’m not one bit sorry. It felt like old times when we both lived in the city – back then we didn’t spend our time jetting from place to place trying to mark things off of a list. We just talked. Slept in. Read books together.

I came home, feeling a bit lonely but happy to see Sky. Then I was in Jury Duty for 2 days and got the worst haircut of my life. Both those things will have to wait for another post…

Had a lovely day with Sky yesterday — we were so sick and tired of being sick and tired (and cooped up in the house) that we wanted to go on a trek. Sky had what was probably H1N1, so he’s been at home since last Saturday. We pulled on our boots, loaded ourselves with scarves and hats and gloves, and walked from Capitol Hill to the U-district. We had a totally average and expensive breakfast @ the Portage Bay Cafe (I’m always enticed by the Toppings Bar for the french toast and it never is as exciting as I think it’s going to be). Next we went to Hardwick’s Hardware store which is one of my favorite places to spend an hour. Then we moseyed over to the Ave and looked at shoes and other assorted stuffs. We ducked into the Henry to view the Polaroids: Maplethrope exhibit (which was small but sweet); I really liked an exhibit called “Sawdust Mountain” by photographer Eirik Johnson — photos of small town Washington that were perfectly composed and spare. After that we had some coffee and watched a movie (Gentlemen Broncos) that wasn’t very good, but still managed to pull me back into childhood with some pitch-perfect observations. Then we had burgers. Then we rode the bus home because it was raining really hard and we were tuckered out.

My first embroidery, Sublime Stitching design

I love fine days with my gentleman. I’m still caught of guard sometimes with how much fun we have together. I keep thinking that one day we’ll wake up and be sick of each other, but it hasn’t happened yet, and I kind of think it might not ever happen that way. Which is awesome. And also a little heavy, in a good way.

I got badass medications for my ailments, which is good. Thank you, codeine cough syrup, for allowing me to sleep through (most of) the night. Thank you, azithromiacin, for making me feel close to perky for the first time in weeks. Thank you, Easter Bunny, for … no Easter Bunny.

My parents are visiting this weekend, and in true parent style they told me on Sunday. And they need a hotel. My friend Shu who I have not seen in 2393892 years is also visiting this weekend. And I need to buy cat food. And I need to weed the Manga at this branch. And there’s a pumpkin sitting on my counter that needs to be made into pie within a day or two or it’s a goner. Loose ends writhing around in the wind like this make me antsy, but I’m making lists and figuring it out and everything is going to be just fine.*

* This reminds me of a movie in which things are not fine, A Serious Man. I was going to write a review for this fine, not fine film, but haven’t had a chance to do so just yet. Believe me, it’s good. Go see it. Bring a hanky because you might just laugh so hard you cry.

Indian Pizza is life changing

Eating: Italian Food. I’m on an Italian kick, or something in the Universe is consistantly directing me towards tomatoes. I made a huge lasagna last week, Jaime and I hit up both an Indian Pizza joint (Zante’s, amazing) and a Greek Italian restaurant while I visited, and last night Sky made us a delicious batch of fettucine alfredo with crisped kale and onions on top – mmmm. Sweets. I finally visited the fabled Miette in the Ferry building. I brought back some cookies for Sky, but ate some delicious macaroons and an Old Fashioned cupcake while there. Man oh man.

Playing: I’m not a big game player, but Jaime and Mike introduced me to Plants vs. Zombies and I played all 60 minutes of the free trial version with Sky watching and giving me tips on where to plant stuff. He’s even less of a gamer than I am, so that was pretty fun.

Listening:

• The Replacements’ Don’t Tell a Soul
• Magnetic Fields: i – this album was in the car when I drove to Half Moon Bay, so I’ve got the songs running through my head

This actress' facial expressions and body language were just amazing

• The Hangover (2009) – this was funny, watched it with Jaime in SF (I also thought it was clever that the Hooker With a Heart of Gold character literally wore a gold, heart shaped pendant)
• Spring Breakdown (2009) – Jaime and I rented this straight-to-video based on a recommendation from Bitch magazine; I think we needed to be drinking wine coolers, as the reviewer recommended
• Extract (2009) – watched alone in SF, cute, but I was sleepy and maybe would like it better awake
• World’s Greatest Dad (2009) – it was nice to see Robin Williams not playing a nanny or some other family-friendly character, wish he’d let go a bit more (I love CRAZY Robin Williams)
• Nights of Cabiria (1957) – we watched this last night; it made being an Italian hooker seem romantic and sweet

Wow – two hookers in one post, sweet.