i invited people over for a movie night

and now none of them are coming but they want a raincheck, which i can't give them cuz now is the time when my parents are gone. :(

it's a good thing i don't have money (or occassions to do this)

i had a drink four days in a row this last weekend. and i greatly enjoyed it.

it's taking everything in me not to comment on fosco's status right now

"You know you have an awesome neighbor, when they show up with a bunch of Morel Mushrooms for you."
so stinkin' hobbity.

schooling

my job counselor just sent me information saying that i could possibly sign up on friday for free schooling, which would start on monday. i was planning on the fall, but this would probably be a good opportunity, what with it being free and now and all. not to bug you all again (feel free to bug me any time), but prayer would be appreciated as i get the information and make a hasty decision.

how you know you have a good friend

when you're being sad that because you have epilepsy, you'll never be so drunk that you'll run into a pole while walking, she loops arms with you all supportive-like and walks with you.

and then runs you into a pole.

speaking of being dissatisfied...

I liked this part of "The Words." Rory [sad, I know], after three years of struggling to make it as a writer, breaks down, ranting.

Dora: "What is the matter with you?"
Rory: "I, I don't...How the *f* do you end up here?"
Dora: "Rory..."
Rory: "I mean, I look at my life, I look at your life, I look at his life, I look at my father's life, I look at everybody's life, and I don't have a *f*ing clue how anybody ends up where they do. I, I don't know. I don't know! I. Don't. Know."
Dora: "It's okay! You don't have to know! There's so much time, Rory."
Rory: "I'm talking about my *f*ing life here."
Dora: "What about your life?"
Rory: "It's not right! Nothing's right!"
Dora: "Rory, how is that supposed to make me feel? How's that supposed to make me feel?"
Rory: "I'm not who I thought I was, okay? I'm not. And I'm terrified that I never will be."

I understand.

Book Review: "Truth in Advertising," by John Kenney

I don't remember where I heard about this book - may have been the library website. But no matter where I heard about it, I'm glad I did.
It's about a man, Fin [sad, I know] who works at an ad agency [that's a lot of 'a's in a row] that just got a last minute project - for a Super Bowl commercial. In the midst of all that franticness, he finds out his abusive father, who no one has seen for 25 years, has had a heart attack and is in the hospital dying [don't worry - it's not remotely sappy like it could be]. Fin's siblings don't visit, but he feels compelled to be there, even though his dad never regains consciousness. Through all this his co-workers/friends are very supportive. I love his friends. His family might be messed up, but his friends are great.
What I like about the book is the humor, but also the realism. Fin's not necessarily happy at his job - it's fine, and in this economy he figures he better stick with it - but he's just there because it's a job. He's pushing 40 and wondering where the time has gone; how time has passed without him doing anything. He knows he's average, and nothing's going to change that. He's not mopey about it, it's just a fact of life. He doesn't dwell on it, but it comes up once in awhile. "I wish I had a calling. I wish I was remarkably good at one thing. Just one thing that I could point to and say, 'I am superb at this. I know this.'...But I am not good at anything...There are times in my life when I look for experiences I can be proud of, things that might define me...The stories of a life well lived. Little monuments we all need to sustain us during those long stretches where nothing quite so memorable occurs, when life simply passes by. I scan my memory for something to hold on to. I can find almost nothing." Then he moves on to something else. But I like that that's in the book. And I like that it keeps coming up, rather that just a pathetic part at the beginning before things turn around for the character. So much more real. Fin's a little dissatisfied with life, but that's how life is.
And somehow it has inspired me to get writing. I'm not sure if it's the style of the book, or the thought of being dissatisfied and untalented being okay after all, or what, but somehow it got me writing.
Good book.

i've been slacking

i've been reading some very talk-aboutable books lately, but i haven't been giving quotes or doing reviews. shame on me. i really should get caught up. they'll now be in no particular order, but whatever.

oh! here we go.

this is a great summation of what 'the words' is not:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NqsTMJnsDg

oh my gosh

 

my jaw just dropped (along with some horrified laughing). check out my longest love:
http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/celeb-news/christian-bale-barely-recognizable-bald-005154049.html?vp=1

oh, and can i just say that the look at :34 (complete with the sound) cracked me up.

just finished "Truth In Advertising," by John Kenney (review to come)

for now i'll just say that i loved it. and i'm very happy to say that it (as well as the 'advice to writers' person i now follow on twitter), inspired me to get writing. i have now written 3 not great pages to a novel that as of yet has no clear destination and probably never will, and 3 pages of a novel that can't ever be read by anyone because it divulges too much of another (real) person's heartache. but! i wrote something.

i want to go to the house of häagen-dazs

there's ice cream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0sjxZmhDUo

Movie Review: "The Words"

Ih. Possibly some potential there, but it fell short. I'll sum it up, but my summing is going to have my opinions at the same time.
Dennis Quaid plays an arrogant author who's reading snippets from his new book at some function or other. His narrating is clunky and flat, and you can't wait for his scenes to be over.
The book is about a struggling author, played by Bradley Cooper, who ends up stealing someone else's work in order to get published. That story is the part that had potential. There was a point to it, and Bradley and Zoe Saldana, who played his wife, were good. Unfortunately the story never got fleshed out well because of the annoying Dennis Quaid and Jeremy Irons parts.
Jeremy Irons was (not a spoiler because if you don't figure it out right away, well, you're dumb) the man from whom Bradley stole the book. He in turn narrated the story about how his story came to be written - an annoying narration over a Ben Barnes barrage of cliches.
I liked the idea of the movie. I liked the premise of a man stealing the work of another and having to deal with the consequences. I liked the marital issues it could have brought up, as she was supportive of her struggling husband, and he then lied to her as well as everyone else about the book. It was touched on briefly, but it could have been delved into more.
Unfortunately, the movie wasn't what it could have been. Oh, and then it just ended, too. I won't say it was a complete waste of time, because I wasn't doing anything anyway, but it's not something I would recommend.

Oh! But I loved this dress:

the one and only headband i will let my baby girl wear

so true

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Marianne Williamson
(credit to chelleybutton for quoting it at me today :) )

my mother's response to my last post

"OH!" slight pause as I scrolled down. "OH! Oh yes, he's do-able. Oh, he should be your wallpaper. Oh my, yes."

[By "do-able" her innocent mind meant if we can't have Joe, J.P. is a great choice, just so you know. Though by her reaction, I think that with no disloyalty to Boy #1, she thinks J.P. is woo-wooier. ;) ]

sorry, joseph, i love you, but

you got married. 

did you really think that there would be no one coming up to take your place as most eligible catcher? 

 meet j.p. arencibia.

 who loves JESUS.

and ice cream.

:)

"Rare picture of a baby great white shark pic.twitter.com/mZSyGwce4p"

someday i want to write my essay

Forgiveness Is Key 

Every time I have set out to translate the book (or story, or hopelessly long essay) that exists in such brilliant detail on the big screen of my limbic system onto a piece of paper (which, let’s face it, was once a towering tree crowned with leaves and a home to birds), I grieve for my own lack of talent and intelligence. Every. Single. Time. Were I smarter, more gifted, I could pin down a closer facsimile of the wonders I see. I believe that, more than anything else, this grief of constantly having to face down our own inadequacies is what keeps people from being writers. Forgiveness, therefore, is key. I can’t write the book I want to write, but I can and will write the book I am capable of writing. Again and again throughout the course of my life I will forgive myself.  

ANN PATCHETT

i love my country

but what a bunch of idiots it contains.
apparently in new york city there's a welsh pub that put out a job ad for some position or other and said they were looking for someone who knows welsh and british culture. new york city has now decided that that's discrimination. the owners did not say only british people could apply. they were looking for someone with a certain skill set. yet here's the wonderful conclusion of the city:

"Cliff Mulqueen, general counsel of the New York City Commission of Human Rights, said: "There's an argument that someone who works in a Chinese restaurant, for example, may need to speak Chinese in order to communicate with their co-workers.
"But there's a difference between saying you have to speak Chinese and saying you have to be Chinese.
"The point is that she posted an ad that is discriminatory because she is expressing a preference for one group of people over another."" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22430910

first of all, how is the chinese thing different from the welsh thing, and second of all, yeah, it's bad to express preference for a group that knows something about a job over a group that doesn't. i think i'd like to apply for and land the job of that guy's heart surgeon.

first time is not a charm

last week i got some fancy schmancy salon shampoo kit thing for thinning hair. i've tried this shampoo and conditioner before and didn't see a change, but cousin johan's bff's friend who works at hair club for men says that it's the spray stuff that comes with this kit that makes the difference. so i said i'd try it. what i don't like about fancy schmancy salon shampoo (aside from the price) is that i swear you have to use more than you do with regular shampoo (okay, so that is related to price). the thing i don't like about fancy schmancy conditioner is that i don't use conditioner because it makes my hair look greasy the next day, and the fact that i apparently don't know how to use it, because since it doesn't lather, it all just goes to wherever i put my hand first. but the point with all this fancy shmancy stuff is the spray, so i guess i'll try it all together like you're supposed to.
to use the spray, you towel dry your hair, then spray it onto your scalp and go on your merry way. towel drying your hair implies that it's still fairly wet. also, the bathroom is always steamy cuz i take hot hot baths and showers, so my face is fairly moist. that combination apparently leads to the spray stuff running down my hair onto my face. a face, which apparently is allergic to it. i felt tingling on my scalp, which is supposedly normal, but i guess that having the hair as a bit of a buffer leads to it being fine after a bit. it being on my face, instead leads to ah! burning, bright red skin.
also, since this is stuff that is supposed to promote hair growth and it ran down one cheek, a chance that i'll end up with one general burnside sideburn.

learning to figure myself out

once in awhile nowadays i can figure out the root of the problem. sometimes there are a few things, but there usually seems to be something totally unrelated.
jeanie asked me to come over two nights a week while she's gone for a month and just sleep in the room with her dogs (they know they're not allowed on the bed). her roommate will do all the feeding and whatnot, it's just that the roommate works nights, and if the dogs are left home alone at night they get into trouble.
problem 1 was easy to figure out: i hate dogs.
problem 2 took a little longer: i hate being committed to things.mostly because it means i'm committed away from other things. what if something comes up and i actually (ha!) get a chance to get out of here for awhile. i'd be stuck because of those stupid dogs. and it's for 4 weeks. who knows what i could do for actual fun in that time?
and problem 3 - probably deep down the biggest thing: i hate that i'd be stuck here with dogs that i hate, when she'll be out actually living life. i'm jealous that she'll be out traveling and having fun, while i'm stuck here simply existing, doing the same old nothing. but with dogs.
i'm not looking for you to say, 'so go out and do something already!' i'm just, idunno, not really venting, just saying, i guess.

thank you, GOD, for a fun day in nursery today

GOD knew I needed an easy day in the nursery today. Pretty much I sat with a 1 1/2year old on my lap the whole time, reading and playing. And by playing, I mean putting toys in a bucket, her telling me no and taking them out again, and me putting different things in a bucket. :)

try to remember, melilot, this is your act of service in the church - you're doing a good thing

every time i'm in the nursery at church, about 45 minutes in i think, 'oh my gosh, when is this hour and a half going to be over?'

Not a Movie Review: "42"

Good movie. Not much to say about it, though, other than that it's the Jackie Robinson movie and it's good. 
I will say that Chadwick Boseman looks like Jackie Robinson.

 And while I don't think Nicole Beharie looks like Rachel Robinson, I can say that I do believe she, too, will be beautiful when she's 92.

 

And! Justin Morneau has a cameo. Granted, I figured it out faster than he did (his wife had to point it out to him), but that could be because it was from, um, behind. ;)

"To my mind, an empty chapel is impressive; a crowded one, comparatively a commonplace affair. Alone, I could choose my own text, and my silent discourse would not be without its practical applications." - from Dreamthorp, by Alexander Smith

my boys are great

from an interview with second baseman brian dozier today:
interviewer: so how do you pack for a road trip?
dozier: well, we have to wear dress-shirts on the plane, and button-up shirts to the field every day. so ten of those or whatever. and something to do during the downtime, like a rubik's cube.
interviewer: a rubik's cube?
dozier: yeah. i'm really good at them. i can do them in under two minutes.

my three-year-old cousin's game

he had a stack of uno-like cards, which had five different colors.
"okay, mom. i'm going to have these three colors, and you can have these two."
he then went through the whole stack putting them in separate stacks according to color.
"now, whoever has three colors at the end wins." pause. mouth drops open, but with a big grin. "i win!"

kinda cool (if you think people who read in medieval times were cool)

http://erikkwakkel.tumblr.com/post/49302305635/brilliant-damage-parchment-often-contains-some?buffer_share=c74d8&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer%253A%252Berik_kwakkel%252Bon%252Btwitter