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• photos •
• little loves • Eddie Cibrian's Dimples
Because c'mon! Shame on Invasion's slowburn peril for not providing them a more frequent showcase. Wentworth Miller
He's my boyfriend. He is. No, he just is. He's all green-eyed, widow's-peaked, melting-pot hotness and oiled-massage voice. He's it. • past loves • |
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Zombies 'R' Us
Speaking of shuffling... One of my favorite moments in the first season of Joan of Arcadia involved Helen telling recently-crippled son Kevin, "Walking's overrated, anyway. Most people try to avoid it. That's why we have so much traffic and skateboards and scooters and golf carts and road rage. Because of how much everyone hates walking." I was thinking about that scene two weeks ago as I walked home from the train after work one evening. It came to mind because I was sick to death of that walk. I so desperately did not want to walk home from the train after work again. Some more. At that moment, I began to formulate a theory that I've been playing with ever since. My theory is that people don't drive everywhere because they're lazy. It's not really the physical exercise part of walking to and fro that everyone finds so distasteful. The problem is that, if you think about it, most of the places you end up going, day in and day out, are the same damn places you end up going day in and day out. You go from home to work. You go from work to home. You go to the grocery store. You go to the post office. You go to the bank. It is neverending and it beats you down. Our lives are full to the brim with drudgery. We can walk it or we can drive it. Why do so many of us end up driving it, even in a city like Chicago where owning a vehicle is almost totally unnecessary? Simply because if we drive from home to work, to work from home, to the grocery store, to the post office, to the bank and on and on...we have less time for the absolute, soul-crushing drudgery of it all to occur to us. The less time the better, I say. But I'm still not buying a car. jlb | 23:17 As much as the denizens of Kenmore will appreciate their parked cars not swimming after rainstorms, I'm here to tell you that the glorious birth of a street drain out the front of your building at 9:12 a.m. is just about the most unpleasant thing you can think of waking up to. The drill sounds like a cross between the panic of an air raid siren and the angry shriek of a velociraptor.
jlb | 10:58 Years lived in Chicago? Six & one-third. Number of rainbows seen? One.  jlb | 17:52 The Princess Bride just ended on Bravo. Watching it, I couldn't help but remember, from scene to scene, how emotionally involved I got as a kid. And, while I don't feel it like that anymore, it's one of those rare films that can evoke the memory of all that intense preteen passion for a poor and perfect farmboy; a non-stringy, pre-Penn Kelly Capwell and her magnificent locks; the rockin' duel atop the Cliffs of Insanity; "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die;" dear, sweet Andre the Giant; and twu wuv. That's pretty cool. Like a mental portal back to what eleven felt like. And, really, is there anything better than Westley's "To the pain" speech? From the gruesome details of Prince Humperdinck's proposed dismemberment all the way up to "Drop. Your. Sword." Tonight, seventeen years older, what really got me was Westley saying to Humperdinck, "It's possible, pig. I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again ... perhaps I have the strength after all." And "mostly dead all day" Westley rises. At that moment -- after gleefully imitating Cary Elwes's lovely accent and perfect delivery of "Drop. Your. Sword." Gotta repeat it cuz it rules. -- it actually occurred to me that internalizing The Princess Bride as a kid may be a part, at least in a small way, of why nothing ever seems too daunting or overwhelming to the adult me. Because, really, the whole movie is about "perhaps I have the strength after all." If we leave aside the textual and fairy tale twu wuv message, everything we take away from the movie tells us that no matter how bad things look -- Shrieking Eels, Fire Swamp, The Machine, father murdered by six-fingered man -- we can always find the strength within ourselves (and with the help of friends and strangers) to survive it. And, honestly, after a day at Initech, who among us doesn't feel that they've been mostly dead all day? The Princess Bride is the shit. Other things that are the shit:
"Nonsense. You only say that because no one ever has." jlb | 01:09 Damn. Cyndi Lauper just rocked "Money Changes Everything" on Soundstage. Now I really wish I'd seen that show. It's almost time for the TOFOG show to air. Watch for me! Dined in Chinatown to "share the pain" of CY's celebratory baby announcement family dinner. She'll be a girl (with those rad Eurasian genes), debuting in January. We sat at the kid's table, trying out baby names. Childhood friend, Jasmine, floated "Canoe" and "Hero" for the coming CY spawn. That girl's awesomely nutty. At one point during dinner, she misheard CY inquire after the cats and she asked, excited and baffled, "You have goats?" The funniest thing was that Fyfe wasn't even there to be patted and fawned over. It's weird to have a "Go go, procreation!" party without the expectant mother. Grab-bagged a couple boxes of leftovers without looking first. I scored with the chicken mai fun and lobster! jlb | 22:54 |
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Pale & Hairy in CA
Tomato Nation
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