Got an unusual comment from Christina the other day:
You were a joy to read… before twitter. Now, not so much. Seriously, have you not better things to say?
Well, the Twitter is basically a way to have something to say, frankly. I suppose everyone who’d be interested in my tweets have probably added me to their own Twitter lists, so I could probably stop posting them here. (I’m DianePatterson on Twitter, btw, in case you’re looking for me.)
But to answer your question: at the moment I haven’t found a particular raison d’être for this blog. Many of the things I’d like to talk about really aren’t fair for me to talk about much (for instance: my kids—yeah, I know, I win some kind of Mom-points for finally figuring that out) and others are just…well…
Writing: I don’t talk about it’s going with my novel on submission in New York, mostly because there’s nothing to report. I’ve done my part: I wrote the best novel I could, I got the best agent I could, and off to the races they go. I have received a few rejections so far, and while they’ve definitely been of the “Wow, that’s a glowing rejection” variety, the key word for me is not “glowing.” There’s no use trying to interpret what they meant: it’s just a “no.” And the only thing to say about that is “Next!”
I also don’t want to dwell endlessly on what’s happening there until such time as something happens. I wouldn’t do it if I were on a job hunt, and I’m not going to do it here.
If it sells, however: just try and shut me up.
I’ve finally (finally!) started work on something completely new. Although I ran it past one guy I know and he said, basically, “What’s different about that?” (Which is the key to sticking lightning in a bottle, story-wise, of course.) And that’s made me wonder about to make it that much more different. But we’ll see as I go.
TheaTUH: My full-length play, The Guest House, starts rehearsals tonight for staged readings the first weekend of October. I don’t know what to expect. Same deal as with the novel: I wrote it, I sent it in to the world, where other people like directors and actors will make something of it. Fly, little play, be free.
Politics: I’ve told Darin that if McCain wins it’s time to seriously talk about moving elsewhere. If I’m willing to brave Canadian winters, things are serious.
Honestly, how far have we fallen as a nation? We joke about torture, and the orders emanated from the top. Not a few “bad apples” (remember that knee slapper?), but from the highest authorities in the nation. There’s a story in today’s SFGate about how a group of historians and activists are trying to move now to prevent Dick Cheney from destroying government documents. What the fuck? Does anyone really understand what the collapse of Freddie and Fannie means, on top of the money we’re throwing down the rabbit hole in Iraq? (Amongst other fabulous blogs, you should check out The Cunning Realist, by a conservative economist who likens our current situation to the drastic days of the Weimar Republic, and yeah, he’s enough of a wonk to give examples why.)
I’m not going to go into why McCain is such an amazingly horrible choice as President. If you don’t know, you’re uninformed, and you should work on changing that right now.
No, I’m not a big Obama fan. (For one thing: FISA, motherfucker? What in the hell does the Administration have on all of these people to make them vote for that? And who here is the slightest bit shocked that I’d imply that?) But yeah, he’s better than the alternative.
Kids: Kids in first grade are supposed to choose books at their own reading level to read aloud to parents. Simon picked his book on Evolution, which just goes to show my 6-year-old is smarter than Sarah Palin.
Sophia is taking taekwondo, ballet, and swimming, and she asked if she could add gymnastics. (I said, Uh, no.) Given that she doesn’t eat, I have no idea where she gets the energy. I would suspect photosynthesis, except she certainly doesn’t eat vegetables.
Fitness: I restarted my gym program after many, many months off, and I love being back there. There’s something about heaving that piece of iron repeatedly that makes me say, “Yes!” I can already feel a difference not only with how my jeans fit (nyuk), but in how well I can keep up with my friends when we go running. If I can start keeping up with them all the time, that will be kewl.
I don’t want to post any progress I’m having either with the weights or the weight (ha), because, well… I’m incredibly judgemental: lots of people post on the 3fatchicks boards with a weight-loss thermometer in their signature proudly proclaiming how much they have to lose and how far they’ve gotten so far, and when the loss is all of 1.5 pounds, I want to say, Why don’t you wait until you have a number that’s statistically significant? I know this probably says more about me. But really: isn’t this blog all about me?
Movies: They suck. Seriously, they do. I actually cut back on our date nights not because of the economy (Darin’s a Director, now, btw, so he’s doing fine), but because we kept wondering what the hell we should go out and do. The last few movies we’ve seen have been: Hamlet 2, The House Bunny, Tropic Thunder, and The Dark Knight. I’m sure there was something between Tropic Thunder and The Dark Knight, but it made little to no impression on me, clearly.
Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly has been our go-to guy for movie reviews since forever, but after Hamlet 2 (which he gave a B+ and deserved more like, I dunno, a D, and that’s only because the “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” sequence was pretty funny) he’s lost about 40,000 of his Killer Movie Critic Cred points.
The House Bunny wasn’t under the impression that it was high art, but it couldn’t figure out what the hell it wanted to be: comedy, farce, parody (yes, these are all different things). And often it would change mid-scene.
Tropic Thunder was deeply hilarious in many ways, but as Ken Levine astutely noted, Pretty much only to Biz people. And a few weeks later I only remember the opening trailer with Downey’s character and the scene where Ben Stiller clearly doesn’t get that Steve Coogan has been blown to bits in front of him.
The Dark Knight: I was underwhelmed. Since apparently it was actually the second coming of Homer and Shakespeare’s love child, I’ll leave it at that.
HA! You didn’t know you were put here for our amusement, did you? F%$&^%g trolls. 🙂
Heh. I prefer to think of it as a posting from a concerned reader, who is maybe not so aware that I am, y’know, an actual person. Of course, sometimes my kids forget that part too.
I had a meh response to Dark Knight too. Heath Ledger could have done the same performance against a blue screen. Yes the pencil trick was stark, but there wasn’t any Joker chemistry with anyone and he would be intensely set on establishing a link to Batman. Gary Oldman was good and Morgan Freeman played the guy we like in all his movies. The 2 Face effect sucked.
But then modern business manages the management of the business, not focus on the bits and pieces that compose it. Hollywood has just worked that way longer.
I have to agree with the original commenter. I have missed your writing, whether it be about your cooking, fitness, kids, whatever. It’s your space to use how you want, of course, but I did enjoy reading what you had to say even about the mundane. You are a good writer, whatever the subject matter!