A Contented Being Tonight

A pair of home made chili dogs for dinner, a spot of reading, a long hot bath and a fresh shave.  I feel remarkably human in the aftermath.  I've settled in to watch an episode of Ghost Hunters and I think I might do a spot of letter writing while I am sitting here.  It was a pretty good day at work and I made headway, which is always an important part of the day.  I'm actually looking forward tomorrow, though, granted, that has a lot more to do with it being Friday then work itself.  I don't have a lot to say tonight, more or less, I am a contented being tonight.

Cormac McCarthy - Cities of the Plain

It was a crazy cascade of a day.  I basically worked from 6:30 AM to 7:30 PM.  I did knock a few things off the list, but a large portion of the day was spent going from one meeting to another.  Chaos carefully layered on top of chaos, with a few flying monkey's thrown in for the entertainment value.  But, even with all that, it was mostly a positive. There was one meeting during the day that was frustrating, largely because their were so many people on the meeting, and I wasn't even really sure what most of them were doing there.

I swung home for a simple dinner at about 3:00 PM, but pretty much immediately popped back online to keep working, through I did watch an episode of Ghost Hunters while I was working. I finally broke it off and called it an evening, then spent a wonderful hour on the phone with T.R.. Now, with the windows open and the fans blowing, I am settled in to unwind before calling it a night.  I reckon I'll watch about an hour or so of TV, then curl up with "Cities of the Plain" and keep reading.  I did realize the other day where the title of the novel comes from:

"And it came to pass, when God destroyed the cities of the plain, that God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow..."  Genesis 19:29.

Given that this is a Cormac McCarthy book, I can imagine it is going to turn out to be a bit more than a distant allusion. I read an amusing quote from him the other day on Good Reads:

"I don't know why I started writing. I don't know why anybody does it. Maybe they're bored, or failures at something else." Cormac McCarthy

There are definitely times when I have to agree with that.

A Two Movie Day - Argo and Seven Psychopaths

Today was a two movie day. First, I saw “Argo”, and then “Seven Psychopaths”.

 Of the two movies “Argo” was definitely the better movie. It was directed by, and starred, Ben Affleck. If you haven't seen the trailers or read the publicity about the movie it concerns itself with the rescue of six Americans from Iran during the hostage crisis. It is a simple, taut, tale. It is alternately funny and intense. Alan Arkin and John Goodman bring much of the comic relief in the movie as a makeup artists and the producer, respectfully. I would definitely recommend it, it's well worth the price of admission and it demonstrates that Ben Affleck has turned into a very good director, at least in my opinion

“Seven Psychopaths” was a more uneven movie. Parts of it bordered on brilliant, but parts of it missed entirely. The cast was outstanding, but unfortunately, too much of the writing was self-indulgent. It felt a lot like a scriptwriter writing a movie about a scriptwriter which is always a failing in Hollywood I think. They say you should write about what you know and unfortunately for scriptwriters that means too often they write about scriptwriters. But, with Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, and Colin Farrell you can hardly go totally wrong. The parts of it that work are worth the price of admission.

After the movie Tony and I stopped at Red Robin for dinner. I had the blue ribbon Burger and steak fries which is pretty good. After dinner I drifted home, I watched a bit of TV, then took a nice nap. I didn't really sleep, instead I kind of tossed and turned, and then eventually gave up and got up. I watched an episode of “Ghost Hunters” and I'm contemplating watching something else off the DVR into the meeting

Today is Day 12 of my personal journey. As such days ago it wasn't too bad. There are always moments when the monkey mind kicks in, when you feel the emptiness, when you're not sure what to do. Then I think you take a deep breath, maybe another deep breath, and you trust to the journey itself. Everything in life happens for a reason or at least that is what I believe. It can be hard to believe when what happens hurts us but it remains to nonetheless. I keep moving forward. I keep taking one day at a time. I keep trying to keep the monkey mind under control.

Two Very Ordinary Pictures

Two very ordinary pictures. The first is my new lamp (a Possini Euro Lightstack from Lamps Plus) in action and the second was tonight's dinner (chicken, hot links, potato salad, and garlic bread from JC's BBQ on Saratoga Avenue in San Jose, California.

There is an art to celebrating the very ordinary things of life. They hold such beautiful simplicity inside of them. They are what they are, nothing more, nothing less. These two pictures really don't serve any purpose other than to be simply ordinary. That is my plan tonight - to be simply ordinary. And watch Ghost Hunters.