I Think I Have That Thing That Baseball Player Had When He Like Psyched Himself Out And Couldn't Pitch, Do You Know The One I'm Talking About?

Because it has been many days since I have blogged, and though I have searched the web high and low, I cannot find anything that I have anything to write about. No celebrity missteps, no ups and downs of the Federlines, who are having them, I am aware, no babies named Kal-el, nothing. I haven't seen any movies in the last few days I've loved or hated, I am less and less interested in TV (WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME???) - believe me, I wouldn't go so far as to say I've like, turned it off or anything, but for example, last night I went to bed before the end of Amazing Race and didn't even tape it. What's that all about? Okay, well, I have been busy grading stories and CHRISTMAS shopping and making stocking stuffers and stuff, and even some actual fiction writing. Still, I haven't come across anything lately to make me go YEEARGH!!!

Ass Master

Watched Margaret Cho’s movie, I’m The One That I Want yesterday, which was pretty great. There are criticisms to be made, I’m sure, but I think what’s best about her is her balls-out honesty about herself and other things like becoming a full-blown alcoholic after her network fucked with her head during her short-lived TV series, All-American Girl. She ended up in the hospital after losing thirty pounds in two weeks because “her face was too big,” and they hired an “Asian consultant” because she wasn’t Asian enough – to play herself. It’s old old old news that Hollywood is like this, but she does not mince any words about it. She manages to get a lot of humor out of this, but to me the funniest is when she tells stories about her mom, and the “Ass Master” bit, where her mom is shelving gay porn books, is so awesome. She opens the book and grimaces – “Oh! So much ass, so fast! I thought maybe a table of contents! Ass okay, but everything in moderation… too much ass… not special anymore!” She also has a really great blog.

Mariah Carey Has Crazy Boobs

No, seriously, have you seen them? It’s not just that they’re fake, or too big, which they are, both of those things. There’s something crazy about them. I don’t know how else to say it.

Iris and John

Watched the movie Iris last night, based on John Bayley’s memoirs about his life with wife Iris Murdoch, who suffered from Alzheimer’s in her last years. I started getting weepy halfway through and full-on sobbed at the end. It’s a beautiful, complicated love story. Bayley loved his wife to pieces from the beginning, and she loved him too, but was always at sort of an ethereal remove, for lack of a longer, better description. Also, at least in the film, he was a sort of dotty, awkward, funny, adorably goofy man all his life, and they were so cute together, especially older, that I can’t wait to be half of a dotty old couple. Anyway, it got me thinking about losing your mind, especially when your mind has been so extraordinary like that. I’ve always wondered about that, like, well, it would obviously suck to be aware of losing your mind, going in and out. But at a certain point, if you weren’t lucid enough to realize what was going on anymore, it seems like it would be much more painful for the people around you, as was clear from this film. Also, Bayley took care of her at home for probably longer than was a good idea, and their house fell to shambles because she’d always taken care of that, and taking care of her was a huge job on top of just keeping the house in order. And she wandered off for hours one time, and almost caused him to crash their car, which is pretty scary. Anyway, Judi Densch and both the men who played Bayley, young and old, were wonderful, especially Jim Broadbent as old Bayley – totally heartbreaking. Have tissues handy. But not Kleenex, they destroy trees and stuff.

The Spoon Is Now Free To Run Away With The Dish

Ben surprised me with a replacement coffee pot last night that actually fits our coffeemaker. This is wonderful news for the spoon, I’m sure, and also for both of us, as I got to have two full mugs of coffee today and neither of us had to wipe up all the coffee that spilled all over the counter from spoon misplacement. I’m going to try extra hard not to break this one.

Crane Wonders What The Positives Are, Exactly

This was the headline of an article in today’s Times: Rumsfeld Says The Media Focus Too Much On Negatives In Iraq. Similarly, I think my headline in today’s standBy Bert speaks for itself.

Five Hundred Six Hundred and Twenty-five Minutes

That's Ben's version of it, anyway. Saw Rent on Friday with Megan and had never seen it on stage but loved loved loved it. Cried during most of the big songs (oh, those harmonies kill me! I will forever be trying to figure out a way to sing all the parts at once - in spite of the fact that my experience with the Tonight medley from WSS hasn't panned out thus far) and sobbed at the end. Tormented Ben with the CD when I got home. Wished I had been a good-looking hipster junkie performance artist in the eighties squatting in a four-thousand square foot loft in the East Village with no electricity and no money for “last year’s rent” instead of a Gap-clad depressed Upper West Side waitress in the eighties living in a duplex with a fireplace and a roof garden and no money for last year’s rent. Also it took me back to when I was absolutely sure I’d grow up to be a Broadway star, and although that didn’t pan out, I still sometimes have pangs that I didn’t do anything with my music. I’m not sure the movie was intended to leave one with the many layers of feelings that it left me with – yes, it’s a sad movie, about AIDS and violence and addiction and gentrification, but it’s also about love and art and friendship and family – but I’m pretty sure that Jonathan Larson wasn’t thinking about little Betsy Crane when he based it on La Boheme, or that the three chords he uses from the opera would send me into weepy convulsions thinking about my mom, who sang both female leads at different times, and my own childhood singing in La Boheme, which is about as Rent of a childhood as it gets, really, both literally and metaphorically and literametaphorically, although we had electricity – barely. There was a brief almost-evicted panic the summer of 69, if I have my years right. The funny thing is that my life now is more Rent than ever, minus the heroin and plus the rent paid on time and plus the living my life as fully as I know how. For whatever reason, as much that I couldn’t afford the rent as anything else, I couldn’t get my true bohemia on in New York. Ok, so I’m a little tired past ten these days, and don’t have much of an urge to light up the night. So I try to light up the day. Anyway, it’s about connecting, and living your life in the moment, and best of all it’s completely earnest, which rocks my world these days. How do you measure the life of a man? How about love?

He's Back

Lest you think I’ve forsaken my first love, celebrity weirdness, for my other, forbidden love of highfalutin’ness, I have not, it’s just that Tom Cruise has had the good sense to lay low until recently. But he’s back, and so am I. Well, okay, look for a post on Joan Didion soon. But in the meantime, I saw Tom, on Access Hollywood, mention his in-home sonogram machine so he can monitor the TomKitten on his own, which almost leaves me speechless, really, which he defended by saying “I’m in the film business! I have to see the dailies!” which okay, I know that was you being funny, Tom, nevertheless, this would be weird enough, if your answer to the question, “Do you want to know the sex of the baby?” weren’t completely disconcerting, which, for those of you who missed it, was “Absolutely! I want to know! I’ve been waiting all these… months.” Okay, I don’t want to overthink here, but it seemed very clear to me that “months” was not the first word that came into Tom’s mind. Even though his kids are adopted, I’m sure he must have heard from someone somewhere along the line how long it takes to grow a baby. What I can’t quite guess was what word was the first that came into his mind. If there’s any truth to the speculation, he’s been searching for an incubator for much longer than the time he’s known Katie, and of course, that would call into doubt the sincerity of his recent couch-jumping, and I wouldn’t presume to cast doubt on their union even though… well, he did meet her through his agent like it was a casting call, is all I’m saying. There’s also the speculation that the baby isn’t, you know, a baby, which is of course silly, I’m sure it’s a baby, but, I dunno, Tom, I dunno how long it takes to incubate something that isn’t a baby, and your little hesitation planted just a mustard seed of a question in my mind…

Being Diane Keaton: Update

I have a good guess that by and large, not too many people will notice the subtle differences in the items I’ve chosen to layer together this week. Oh well.

This Is What It’s Come To Around Here

It is so cold in the middle section of our apartment that I’ve come to find doing the dishes something that’s marginally pleasurable because it warms up my hands for a few minutes.