Tuesday, January 20, 2004
Today, I feel only half so morose about my writing (career) as I did yesterday. I'll wish a plague of chihuahuas on my worst enemy, instead.
I think today's going to be a lull in the vacation (now 470 hrs. and 53 minutes old), which is almost over anyway. There are people I should have called a week ago, biographies to send to conventions, a formerly wayward bookshelf that has to be assembled, and so forth. I'm resisting the urge to flee back to Jacksonville or St. Augustine. This cold seems to have no frelling end. My office is an Antarctic waste. The doorway is the South Shetland Islands. Over by the window is the South Pole. I can see the Vinson Massif from my chair. The new loft, the loft we've yet to find, the loft made necessary by the impending condominiumization of this place, will have no cryospheres. But I'm getting off the subject. The lull. The semblance of work. And so forth.
This morning, my iBook completed its 100th SETI@Home data unit. For some reason, that seems like more of a milestone to me than did finishing my last novel.
And Dean came in third in Iowa, and I'm trying to decide if I can bring myself to shift my support to John Kerry, who looks way too much like a game-show host for comfort. It's that damned plastic hair of his. I may stick with Dean through New Hampshire. In the end, for me, it all comes down to a question of who has the best chance of beating George W. Bush. I've always hated such reductive politics, but I think things are bad enough that until we've undone the damage that the Bush Administration continues to do, all the rest is of diminished importance.
Yesterday, Spooky and I went to a matinee of Monster, which is one of the most moving and disturbing films I've seen in some time. Charlize Theron's transformation into Aileen Wuornos is both amazing and chilling (the make-up people deserve an Oscar for the dental prosthetics alone). Patty Jenkins' script and direction are tight. Indeed, they are superb. As usual, Christina Ricci can do no wrong. Monster is one of those films that leaves me wishing I could ever come close, in my own writing, to such utter perfection. This is surely one of the best films of the year. See it, if you haven't already.
The eBay auctions continue. Remember: "Buy it now" and I have to draw you a little beastie.
Hold on. There are penguins beneath my desk...
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