Movies I've Seen or Want to See

I don't really watch that many movies, but I really enjoy them when I do. I am 100% against wasting two hours on a bad movie, though; I prefer to be blown away.



I've started this blog to collect a list of movies I want to see so that when I do get the chance to watch a movie, I make sure it's something I've decided is going to be worth my time.



Any suggestions for additions to this list are welcome.

World on Fire

I just saw Sarah McLachlan's new video called "World on Fire."

View it in iTunes here.

I am speechless.

I am so grateful for the life I have.

What I read and what I think about it.

When I was nine or ten, I had the brilliant idea to start a notebook with a list of every book I'd read, and the dates that I read it. I read a lot as a kid, and it was (and still is) one of my greatest joys. And I'm a natural pack rat, so it appeals to me to hold on to those books after I've finished them by keeping track of their titles. Somehow, I never got around to starting the list, and every time I've thought about it since, I've cringed at the thought of how many books I've read and not listed, and then I can't bear to start it. Well, I'm starting it now.

Pen and Paper

It's hard to give my grandparents presents these days. They say they don't need or want anything in particular. I don't know what kind of books they read. I hardly see them, and I probably talk to them on the phone once or twice a year. It's not that I don't want to talk to them, it's just that the forms of communication that fit into my lifestyle, the ones I use to keep in touch with friends all over the world (IM, e-mail, late phone calls after evening minutes kick in on both our cell phones) don't really fit into their lifestyle. They don't have a computer, and although they do have a cell phone (on the same network as me, so we could talk free), they never turn it on. So we don't have that much contact, which is too bad, because they're getting up there, and who knows how much longer they'll be around for me to talk to.



These are my grandparents, Bob and Jean.







They're the only grandparents I have. They're actually my step-mom's parents, but they've been around since I was eight, so they count. My dad's parents both passed away by 2001. My biological mom's family ... well, I don't know much about them at all.



So this Christmas I gave my grandparents a Circle Journey Journal. I started it with a little note and a specific question for each of them. To be honest, when they called to thank me for it, they didn't seem too excited.



"I haven't written a letter in years," my grandmother said. "And your grandfather, he hardly ever did! But I guess we'll have to get to work on it."



All my grandfather said was, "What an unusal gift."



I didn't think they liked it, but at least they seemed to appreciate the spirit of the gift.



Well, they actually did sit down and write answers to my questions, and I finally got the book in the mail a couple days ago. It was so exciting to get real mail! It wasn't a bill, or something I ordered online, or junk mail, or a magazine. It was real mail! And their letters were great. I was even excited to write back to them and answer the questions they asked me.



And even better than getting real mail, I actually learned something about my two wonderful grandparents. Something that you wouldn't just know about them by looking at them. Something about how they think, how they thought when they were younger, what the experiences in their lives have been.

Anonymity and Veneered Particle Board

It's amazing how difficult it is to be anonymous, so I'm giving that up and moving on. (Deleted discussion here about how I decided to be honest instead of anonymous--someone told me that was the right approach.)



I spent the weekend putting some new furniture together. Living in the city (that's New York City) of course means that I need to stay mobile and that I don't have a lot of space. And, honestly, living in New York isn't the reason that I've been keeping things mobile; more on that another time. But I just got tired of looking at plastic drawers full of underwear. I found some inexpensive lingerie chests online. They're one step up from Ikea, but slightly below fine furnishing. And yes, I had to put them together myself.



I'm actually pretty handy at that kind of thing. The secret to success is to read the instructions, but not to pay too much attention to them. It took quite a while, because I had a detour shopping trip to get an electric screwdriver (every girl needs one battery operated power tool; now I finally have mine).



The downside to having fourteen new, empty drawers is that I had to fill them. I spent the rest of my weekend moving stuff around.



But it feels better to look at veneered particle board than it did to look at plastic (though it was plastic artistically draped with a turquoise and gold tiger-print sarong). And particle board seems more permanent than plastic. Maybe I'm starting to settle down a little after five years of flight.

I will not lapse into a comma...

Yes, I stole the title (from an apparently brilliant book by Bill Walsh, which I have not read).



I just want to establish at the outset of this blog that I will be using correct grammar, mechanics, and punctuation.



organdie jay