Nyataimori

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December 30, 2007

christmas

the last time marina was in town she noticed an IV bag hanging over my bed (it's for moo cow). she was rather horrified and declared it odd. i'd forgotten that it was odd because i've gotten so used to it, but now upon considering it in light of marina's reaction, it is pretty weird to have an IV bag hanging over your bed.

i'm going somewhere with this.

christmas this year was odd with the addition of babies. they're like IV bags over the bed except, you know, they're babies clinging to a mother. they leave me wondering when i will become so accustomed to them that i won't even notice anymore that they're IV bags.

last night at jacob and lisa's sushi party, i was telling them about my christmas and the house i stayed in. i kept adding one fantastical fact atop another. yes, i said, we stayed in an enormous house with 7 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, a pool table, giant screen TV, foozball, and three living rooms. i continued with, my room had 2 couches, 2 beds, a private exterior door with mini porch, and a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom. the house itself was on 30 acres of land and had it's own waterfall--about 20 feet high. and i cuddled a 3 week old cougar cub.

Posted by michele at 10:53 AM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2007

juno

i saw juno this week with kristen in san francisco. damn, but i loved that movie. it's so sweet, endearing, and without any real malice. the characters were all an idealized version of how i'd like to think people are and it had 4 of my favorite TV actors in it--jason bateman, allison janney, jennifer garner, and michael cera.

short plot outline: juno gets pregnant by paul and the loring's want to adopt the kid.

that was a goddamn short outline. anyway, then life ensues, you know, and there's relationship problems with juno/paul and the lorings.

other than the really odd writing for teenagers and my cynical nature there's nothing wrong with this movie. it's delightful, quixotic, and reassuring.

i've kind of got to question though if it presents a very good role model of teenage pregnancy. nothing bad happens to juno. her parents are supportive, she finds adoptive parents for the kid, we see no serious evidence of her peers or teachers being mean to her for being knocked up, she goes back to her life as soon as she gives the kid up with a bare minimum of grief or verbalization of loss. how honest can this be? i liked it because it was optimistic and sweet, but i don't know if i would want teenagers to see it without a lecture on safe sex.

also, when jason bateman's character decides to move out he states that he thought juno would be happy. he doesn't want to be a father after all and wants a divorce from jennifer garner's baby-crazy character. but what the hell did he think would happen if juno was happy with his new apartment? what did he think she was going to do with the baby if she couldn't give it to him and his wife? the possibility could exist that juno would keep the baby then and he would be stuck with a 16 year old live-in girlfriend and a baby. ridiculous. jason bateman was my least favorite character, which is sad since i love him so.

even though i have post movie gripes, i still really loved this movie and recommend it to everyone.

Posted by michele at 10:04 AM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2007

atonement

yesterday i saw atonement at the dome with ellie. sadly, it was not IN the dome because they tricked us with double showtimes and alternating times in the dome and our time was not a dome time. so i had to go all the way around the corner past the collapsed Monkey Ward (which is the montgomery ward shopping alley for those of you not privy to my brain).

atonement was this gorgeous visual piece which i really liked. the cinematography and direction were perfect. kiera knightley and james macavoy were excellent at passion. especially when she pops out of the fountain in the slip all dripping water and sexual tension and anger. and in the library in the green dress. oh god, that green dress is incredible.

brief plot outline: the story is about a well-off british family starting just prior to WWII. there are 3 children. the oldest brother is maybe late 20's, the middle daughter (cecilia) is early 20's, and the youngest daughter (briony) is 13. cecilia and robbie (the house-keeper's son) declare their passion for one another. briony gets pissed and claims he raped her cousin and he gets sent to jail and then the war. the story is mostly told from briony's POV, but she is relating the story of cecilia and robbie (she's a writer who within the book actually wrote the book).

i read part of the book before giving up to read some vampire YA and it was lovely writing. what i got out of the part i read was that the book was trying to describe a young girl's moment of understanding that what she perceives as the truth is not always the truth. that there are multiple sides to every story and that a person's role as the removed voyeur is very different from the person who is a participant in the central action. the film version highlighted this moment of realization by repeatedly showing same scenes from different viewpoints. which generally i would consider boring because i am impatient, but in this case i thought it was really well done.

there's this scene on the beach in france when all the british soldiers are waiting for the navy to come collect them in their retreat. they did a continuous shot that was absolutely amazing to watch as it started on macavoy and went all over thru the soldiers, around in arcs, and back to macavoy. i mean, it went up stairs, around corners, up a sand-dune, and it was all smooth and graceful. so pretty (and horrific as they were shooting the horses they had to leave behind so the germans couldn't use them, also destroying cars, ammunition, etc.). and there was a group harmonizing a patriotic song in a gazebo that the camera went around in a full 360. a-fucking-mazing, i tell you.

so, gorgeous lovely film, well done and worth seeing. though seeing it IN the dome would have been so much more delightful. that long shot on the enormous screen? man, that would have been good.

Posted by michele at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2007

punk rock baby

oh, i am going to raise him on the sex pistols, the ramones, the kinks, the clash...

baby, it is all punk, all the time.

Posted by michele at 07:28 PM | Comments (0)

jonathan tropper

a couple weeks ago i wrote the author of how to talk to a widower in order to rave about his book. here is my email to him:

Dear Mr. Tropper,

I don't read a lot of literature. This is because I find most of it to be overly similar and repetitive. I prefer YA fiction—especially fantasy since (I think) it shows the most innovation in writing. However, I was recently house-sitting at someone's residence and picked up How to Talk to a Widower. This was the same house at which I read The Book of Joe several years prior on a separate house-sitting gig (house-sitting and purloining reading material during the stint apparently go hand-in-hand for me). The point is that I remembered really liking The Book of Joe lo those many months before, and was delighted to try another one of your novels. Upon finishing How to Talk to a Widower all I could express was flabbergasted wonder at how amazing it was. Seriously. I raved about your book to anyone who would listen. You made me remember how enjoyable good literature could be and gave me the chance to talk about something a little more respectable than the vampiric teenage angst in my latest YA read. For writing such a marvelous book, I thank you a million times over and congratulate you on all your success. I'm not going to forget about you for years again now but will immediately go out and read your other two novels and look forward to the next one with barely tempered glee.

Sincerely,
Michele

this was unusual for me cause writing to celebrities is not a common occurrence in my life. but i really fucking loved that book. anyway, he wrote me back yesterday! and sure, it's short and succinct, but still--delightful! friends with famous people!

Hi Michele. Thanks for the nice note. So glad you found me again.

Best,
JT

awwwwww!

Posted by michele at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2007

library school

my semester ended a week ago and since that time i've been a little stir-crazy. as you may have noticed since i went from posting once month to twice in one weekend. and now here again.

this semester i was taking 4 classes. 4 fucking graduate level courses. it was awful and marvelous and horrific all at once. i was taking:

intro to cataloging (way boring and painful to my GPA)
preservation management (actually quite fun)
publishing for the profession (interesting but difficult grader)
and international and comparative librarianship (my most favoritest class ever)

for that last one, i wrote a paper in a group on a university library in kenya. we were suggesting ways in which they could implement and expand a special collections at their uni. this has led to the potential of an internship IN KENYA at the uni for three of us who want to go and help them start the special collection plans we suggested. so sweet! so hopeful it comes to fruition!

we also made a poster for a conference in san jose last friday on our paper. where i networked and got business cards. awesome.

for the 3rd class--publishing for the profession--i wrote an article on the juvenile hall in my county. and thru THIS i've set up a special studies project for next semester to do a survey on delinquents, probation officers, and faculty at the hall on library usage and benefits. i'll have to write a honking research paper and maybe will try to get a few other juvies to participate so i can do a comparative review. i'm so excited!! i even went to juvie today and got a tour of the building by the librarian. i saw teenagers in jumpsuits and handcuffs! it was crazy.

next semester i've also got an internship at the maritime academy in vallejo (a sweet gig with sailors), a class on EAD (encoding archival documents), and a class on services for racially and ethnically diverse communities (already fascinated). so i'm taking 4 courses again next semester like a loony. but by god, i'm going to finish at the end of summer. hopefully. man, fingers crossed.

Posted by michele at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)

December 15, 2007

I am Legend

i'd suggest not reading this if you want to see the movie and don't want anything spoiled for your viewing pleasure.

it's a sad day when you go into a movie expecting will smith to be his normal sci-fi film snarky self and instead get a slightly crazy, wholly unfunny smith. in the grand tradition that started with independence day and came through in wild wild west, men in black, and i, robot, i EXPECT will smith to be sarcastic while kicking ass and taking alien/robot names. i do NOT expect him to pant in terror, talk to mannequins like a crazy person, and kill his dog. the will smith i know would have found a cure before snapping the dog's neck. this is just depressing.

also depressing was the inclusion of emma thompson as the originator of the disease. i do not like her to be the destruction of the human race.

the infected people were pretty fucking scary. they did the whole open-the-mouth-downwards-really-wide-roar thing that the mummy in the mummy did (a movie which i, admittedly, love because there's an ass-kicking, name-taking, sarcasm-making male lead). annoyingly smith did not seem to catalog on his stupid streaming video camera that the infected HAD redeveloped human-like cognitive behavior in their creation of an alpha-male general character who set up booby traps and attacked smith's dog with slavering infected dogs. but luckily god and butterflies come to him and he found the cure at the end in time to give it to the completely unrealistic duo that just saved him from a suicide run. you know what i enjoyed? how the infected found his house and he blew up washington square.

basically this movie started with chasing deer through the middle of new york's devastation and i had to cover my eyes for THAT at the thunks the deer made as they ran into things. it didn't get any better from there. stupid hank at the video store, stupid will smith crying to a mannequin, stupid flashbacks, stupid god/butterfly theme, stupid depressing/terrifying movie. and the ending, oh god(butterfly), seriously? voice over? VOICE OVER? not ok.

Posted by michele at 09:10 AM | Comments (8)

kittens

Indecision is a quality that I despise. So it’s with no small amount of grief that I’m trapped in a battle with it right now. I’m like a teeter-totter swayed on one side by cute kitten and on the other by my undefined future. The question before my hated indecisiveness is whether or not to adopt one of my foster kittens.

These are goddamn cute kittens, let me tell you. Also, I had to bottle-feed them. Which, since they’re kittens you would not think could create such a mother-child bond; but this is a fucking bond right here.

A couple weeks ago my mom cut a comic out of the newspaper in which a woman was turning down a man’s advances. “It’s not you,” comic woman said, “It’s me. I’ve got to focus on my cats right now.”

THAT’S ME.

I know how pitiable that statement is. I can still recognize my horrifying descent into aged spinster cat lady. But maybe it’s time to just give in and accept this inevitable fate. Like an old person and grey hair, you know? Accept defeat gracefully.

This platitude would have more power if I even knew what color my hair is under the dye. Sadly, this is a revelation I have concealed from myself for years.

Addendum: I wrote the above yesterday, but today I'm not getting another kitten, so don't panic. My indecisive teeter-totter is over now and the kittens are probably being adopted by lovely people in Walnut Creek as I write this. I am jealous of those people, but hopefully I'll get over it in time.

Posted by michele at 09:00 AM | Comments (2)