February 17
Clearing files from your computer can become an impressively nostalgic way to spend time, I’ve discovered; sure, there are the files you remembered existing and the ones that you have no attachment to — I am both impressed and appalled at how many of my everyday work files that I have somehow managed to accidentally squirrel away in places that surprise me — but there are also the things that you’ve entirely forgotten about that bring back a flood of memories: Here’s the non-disclosure agreement I signed for that review that never ran! I think, or Here’s that audio file where the guy I was interviewing just said something so sexist the piece got shut down! I write enough different things every day (Usually at least six stories for various outlets, and this as well) that I forget what I’ve done almost as quickly as it’s finished, so it’s weirdly amusing and wonderful to get to go back and remember these things. And then put them in the little trash bin icon, and click “empty trash.” Goodbye, weird life.
Michael Bolton, 33, who had gone to Fifty Shades with his wife Yvonne, 32, said: “Besides being the worst film I have ever seen, three women were getting arrested and put in a police van when we arrived.
“A woman came out the theatre and said that a guy had been glassed.
“One woman was in handcuffs and another two women were in tears.
“She said that three or four girls had been very loud and were shouting. The man had asked them to shut up and he was glassed.
“It’s a cinema where you can buy drink.
“Only in Glasgow are police called to the cinema. This type of behaviour happens at pubs and nightclubs – but you don’t expect that at a cinema.
The fact that the man quoted feels the need to diss the movie before talking about what actually happened is so, so great. (From here.)
February 16
There’s a new baby on the block — so new, in fact, that he doesn’t have a name yet, although his five-year-old sister told me very sincerely that “Burpkins” was in the running, adding that he’d be called “Burp” for short — who arrived this weekend. To the surprise of few, he was the talk of the neighborhood this weekend, with all of us marveling in his very existence, or at least the speed of his birth (Labor lasted an impressively short amount of time, under an hour). While we’ve been breathlessly sharing stories and speculation about his arrival, his potential name and everything else about him, meanwhile, his parents have been slowly recovering from his arrival. Watching them look (understandably) sleepy and dazed about the entire experience, it struck me that while the news of Burpkins’ arrival is a communal experience, the reality of it is an intensely personal thing that we can’t really share in. The difference between a minor meme and a human being, perhaps.
February 15
And what does it mean when you dream of Astro Boy? I’m asking for a friend, of course — a friend that happens to look very like me, and had strange dreams in which people were congratulating him for creating Astro Boy, even though that obviously wasn’t the case.
My favorite part of the dream was that I kept telling people, no no, that’s not me, I didn’t come up with that guy, but everyone just thought I was being overly modest. What is this world of overly complimentary people, and how do I get there? My ego would thank me.
February 14
There’s a song from a quasi-Britpop band of my youth that I always remember the refrain of, every year on the day: “Stay out of my way/On Valentines Day,” it went, oh so jauntily. I can’t remember why such a warning was being made — perhaps there was comedic disaster around the corner? — but for me, the overwrought romance or bust nature of the day has always seemed a little overwhelming, and a little desperate.
To confess that almost feels dangerous, as if I’m saying that I have no time for romance, when the opposite is the case. And yet, I don’t like thus holiday and never have. If that makes me a Love Curmudgeon, then so be it.
February 13
I’m not sure whether it speaks to my state of mind or to some particular pop prowess of Taylor Swift, but “Shake It Off” has been in my head fairly continuously this week, in a way that has ended up being more pleasant and catchy — and maybe a little bit inspirational, or at least motivational — than annoying. It helps, I suspect, that I’m not really singing the entire song in my head all the time, but essentially just the horn riff from the verse, over and over again (Yes, not even the drums, which are astonishingly catchy; did people write think pieces about the drums in this song when it came out? They should have). It’s become a musical mantra in my head, a reminder to keep moving, keep active and work through all the deadlines and everything that have to be tackled. I’m just not sure how it ended up in there, is all.
I now inhabit a life I don’t deserve, but we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn’t end any time soon
David Carr
(via devilduck)
(via devilduck)
February 12
It finally happened; I just outright missed a day here. I realized late at night, and had this moment of Maybe I should write something now that was quickly replaced by It’s 11 o’clock at night and you’re nowhere near a computer, let it go. It had to happen, especially considering the nature of this week, which has seen my early mornings filled with stuff: dentist appointments, preparations for visiting folk, watching things on the Internet under an NDA that are time-sensitive, writing about Spider-Man movies, and so on. All of which is to say, this week has been a surprisingly rough one, when it comes to starting the day off right.
That might explain the fact that, this morning, I woke up thinking Is it Saturday? Please let it be Saturday? with no small level of desperation. Each week this year has increasingly felt that way, getting to a point where it feels more exhausting to just get to Friday in one piece. I’m waiting for the turnaround.