My only comment about the RNC

If I were Republican, I think I'd be insulted at being stereotyped as loving really bad Country music...

So I was going to write this thing about hypocrisy...

Then Music Wench beat me to it.

I mean, come on, people. If this were a Democratic candidate, the right wing would be all over it like a 3 year-old on paste. And did anyone else want to remind her last night that Obama is running against McCain, not her? Whatev.

Also, Keyser (Rosebud) Soze posted a little gem I hadn't come across yet. Can I tell y'all how much I love Michelle Obama? She is the fabulous queen of fierceness. In fact, my one complaint about that piece is she should be the one next to Barry in the front.

Conversations in a living room

Snippets between the Husband and I while watching Road House:

Me: Oh my god, it's that guy!
tH: What guy?
Me: I don't know his name, but I can never look at him the same since that episode of Criminal Intent he was in.
tH: Why?
Me: He was just...look, the next time Maria and I are together, just look at one of us and say, "How about some oral?" and watch us lose our shit.

Me: See? Watch him.
tH: Who? How About Some Oral?
Me: Yeah. He's thinking that everytime he looks at Swayze.

Me: I don't think that philosophy degree is working out for him.
tH: Wait 'til he rips out sombody's throat out.
Me: Did he learn nothing from killing that guy in Memphis?
tH: He goes all hardcore when they kill Sam Elliott.
Me: ...THEY KILL SAM ELLIOTT?!?!?
tH: You didn't know?
Me: You don't kill Sam Elliott. Kill bad actress girlfriend. Kill How About Some Oral. But never, ever kill Sam Elliott!

Me: You know if this were an episode of the A Team all he'd have to do is throw him in the lake to incapacitate him.
tH: *mimes being unable to swim after Mr. T tosses him in water*
Me: Did he just say, "I fucked guys like you in prison?"
tH: I believe so.
Me: 'Cause I have trouble finding the hotness in that. OMG HE REALLY DID JUST RIP OUT HIS THROAT!!!

Me: Is this going to be like the end of Karate Kid II...oh, yep he's pulling back, I guess all those other guys slaked his thirst for blood enough.

Me: It would be just like How About Some Oral to get in the last shot.

Best. Movie. Ever.
Except for Sam Elliott being all dead at the end.

Monkey Brain Cheerios

It has now occurred to me, after sitting in front of my computer for about six hours straight each day for the past four days, that when I put my mind to something, I do not stop. And I wonder what is the line between being single-minded and obsessive.

It's not that I don't obsess about stuff, people, situations. But in conversation with my livejournal friend Fia, I reconsidered my use of that word. Because Fia loves Adam Baldwin and Zac Levi (title character) from the TV show Chuck so much that she watches every crappy movie they are ever in. Even Big Momma's House 2. And I love a couple of actors to an extreme degree, but nothing, other than the promise of large bags of cash, would get me to watch the VDO version of Big Momma's House 2. I will, however, watch Hot Fuzz so many times I can recreate it scene and line in my head.

And I will, in the face of a hurricane bearing down on my home state, unable to communicate with anyone of my loved ones due to cell phone dysfunction, ignore the news and sit in front of my computer for hours on end, not talking to the guest in our house, not even noticing there's a natural disaster happening, to finish a story.

It has been so long since I've written anything longer than a prose-poem that I had forgotten the intensity of being so in the zone of what I'm writing that I can't even hold a conversation without another one taking place in my head between my characters. I am useless in these situations. I do not eat well, I live off candy and caffeine, the Husband (proud though he is, and happy for me as well) has to put up with my mind constantly being elsewhere. Once I reach that point of no return I am without remorse, ignoring the niceties of everyday life (don't even ask me when my last shower was) in order to finish.

And then, once I do, after the happy dance, the crowing, and once my heartbeat slows to a normal pace, and I lift my head to look around and see if the Husband has moved from the couch, and if the world is still standing, the doubt sets in. And the obsession takes a new turn as now I constantly think about the story, but from a different perspective, a darker, more critical voice takes up residence in my head and I am grumpy, almost inconsolable, so certain what I've written sucks big donkey dick. No more accomplishment, no more crowing.

I only have to examine this a little to understand why I will never be a professional writer.

For the record, my great accomplishment is an epic piece of fanfiction (23,000 words), which, when I manage to gag the mean and nasty Editor who lives in my head, I am actually quite proud of, even if it is fanfiction. Because for that few weeks I was so immersed in my story, I was happy. I felt creative. I loved what I was doing. I suppose if I were a more well-balanced person (though I don't know many writers who are), I would focus on that, that great feeling I experienced while creating my world, constructing dialogue, setting scenarios, pushing through blocks to the finish when I hadn't finished anything in over five years.

I finished my story, y'all.

My family is safe. My city survived and didn't drown.

And I finished my story.

Also

I've recently found the best way to entertain oneself in a thoroughly distracting manner is to watch the final hour of Dune while having no idea what is going on. It's similar to attending a piece of performance art - you are confused, but fascinated at the same time.

Dagnabbit!

So my big trip to Destin has been canceled due to stupid Hurricane Gustav, and because my whole family is evacuating (wisely, I might say), I can't even go to NOLA to visit them. This hurts somewhere deep inside I will try to ignore for a little while.

Anyway, can those of you who are also in NOLA, but are not my family please find a way to keep in touch so I don't worry about you too? I know this thing is too far away for us to even speculate now, but I can't stop the memories of how difficult it was to find everyone after Katrina, and I figured preemptive notice may help.

I know at least one of you will not be evacuating due to part ownership of 53,879 dogs. Should the worst happen, I would appreciate if you could find a way to let me know you and yours are okay. If you need my cell # again, email me.

I can't stop wanting to share

From de-noted:

Brilliant!

After all my whining about last Sunday's LOCI season finale, I am ready to eat crow, because that was some of the sickest, most brilliant, out of nowhere shit I'd seen on television in a long time. I'm almost sad Warren Leight waited this long to impress me (though I really could have done without the flashbacks, and not because I had seen the episodes before, but because I thought they were pretty weakly inserted). Over at the VF blog, James Wolcott agrees with me (with spoilers):

The dramatic peak of Sunday night's viewing wasn't the submersive emotions dulled from rusty disuse on Mad Men (which more and more seems like a simulation exercise) but the phenomenal season-end arc climax on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, in which all of the pieces were cleared from the chess board in an Oedipal showdown between Goren (Vincent D'Onofrio) and his mentor, played with seedy, reedy panache by John Glover, dressed in the stained white of a disreputable Southern lawyer. The psychic clash of Goren's sunken-vessel misery and Glover's glinty-eyed dementia against the bluish confines of the interrogation room elevated the series to an existential plane without losing the edge of glee that comes from actors seizing the electric moment. (I also enjoyed seeing Ilana Levine, whom I met on the set of Robert Altman's Tanner '88, in the early scenes with Goren's ravaged brother, played by Tony Goldwyn.) Taking Goren back to tainted zero (no mother, no brother, no mentor, no nemesis, and a dead serial killer for a father), It sets up the next season of Law and Order: CI beautifully upon return in November, when--in the other partnership--Jeff Goldblum's ostrich head will attempt to fill the spot vacated by Chris Noth.

I too look forward to what is now in store for season 8.

Make me Laff

Over at Bookshelves of Doom Leila and her husband plan Philip Seymour Hoffman's next movie.

And if any of you have an opinion about sex in stories, feel free to comment. But first, you may want to read my post (and comments) about it on my livejournal.

I have nothing else to add. I've been writing. PORN! Actually, NOT!porn!, as you will see by my post.

At least it's not a blogthing

Your result for The Director Who Films Your Life Test...

Ingmar Bergman

Your film will be 61% romantic, 31% comedy, 38% complex plot, and a $ 41 million budget.

Your life will be portrayed on film as an intense psychological drama, likely with some actresses screaming at the camera (Persona), or maybe a pleasant chess game between the Grim Reaper and a Crusader (The Seventh Seal). This Swedish director's films are intensely scrutinzed and studied in colleges all over the world to this day. This means that most Americans still don't understand his films! Still alive, he released in the U.S. in 2005 his first film in 23 years (Saraband), and he can still take on one more project to make your film biography. If curious, start with his films Wild Strawberries and Smiles of a Summer Night.

Take The Director Who Films Your Life Test at HelloQuizzy