portrait

just a nice portrait of steve, taken by kara on the 22nd of this month, plastered here only because i think it's quite a good shot. she's 5/6 of a year old. and i don't think i have much else to say this morning. i haven't gotten to talk to a pathologist yet, but perhaps i will this coming week. my writing is going okay; i started something new, again, this weekend, and i'm trying to veer out of my comfort zone a little. we'll see how long i can keep that going. and i'm reading nonfiction for a change, a book about van gogh and gauguin sharing a house and painting at the end of 1888, such a painstakingly detailed account of their day-to-day lives. of course, reading about painters makes me think of creating visual things, or at least poetry, rather than prose, but i do think fiction is where i need to focus now. anyway. i have a short while before i need to start work, so i think i'll get back to my other writing, or just have breakfast.

man as boob

so i read through this 89-page novella rather quickly, if not furtively. i've had it on my shelf for a while, from a period when i was buying up all the philip roth i could find. (my favorite novel of his is still the human stain and i still don't see what the big deal is about american pastoral.) and this one, the breast, i put off reading for years, because it just sounded bizarre and offensive. a man turns into a 155-pound disembodied breast, a low-brow and grossly sexist homage to kafka's "the metamorphosis"? and now that i've read it, i still don't know what to think. the writing is, of course, good, and i like how roth describes the inexplicable transformation as "an endocrinologic catastrophe unlike any the endocrinologists had ever known before." the breast cannot move or see, so he relies on doctors, nurses, his shrink, his father, and his girlfriend to tell him he's strapped to a hammock in a hospital room; but he can hear and speak, and his nipple, of course, is quite sensitive to touch. so the book seems to be have half about the breast's denial of the entire situation (trying to convince himself he's insane) and half about his scheming to get women to touch, lick, and fuck his hypersensitive nipple. of course it could well be that there are finer meanings i'm missing; john gardner seemed to like the book a lot, whatever that's worth. i don't know. me, i'm moving on.

54 years of cinema

tivo's nice. i like it. but i suppose it's ultimately dangerous in the hands of a person such as myself.

over the last few days i watched high noon again, for maybe the 3rd time altogether. it's a movie i like a lot, though i still feel the ending was a bit abrupt. i want more of a denouemont. still, gary cooper is so totally the man. the fistfight between him and lloyd bridges was nicely edited, i thought. i should look for more movies by this director, fred zinnemann. i have a man for all seasons and the search set up to be recorded in the next couple of weeks - i've seen neither of those before. he also did julia (a full 25 years after high noon - wow), which i haven't seen in a long time, with jane fonda and vanessa redgrave (still the sexiest woman in the world - see venus, a 2006 movie [29 years after julia] starring peter o'toole) - i also want to see isadora (1968) but it's not currently on dvd. and julia for some reason (probably thematically?) reminds me of reds, another movie i haven't seen in a while but remember liking (though not fully understanding, because of my lack of education at the time about that political era). all these i'm adding to gimme, because i sure can be a materialistic prick sometimes.

my birthday, after all, is next month. whopping 37.

and sometimes i just want to watch all of lee j cobb's movies. i like him a lot too, but have only seen a few of his movies. what of his should i look for, aside from the wonderful 12 angry men?

give me your answer do

i went to college with this fellow, mike daisey; we were in a fiction-writing class together, when i was a senior and he a sophomore. at the time i thought he and i were the most promising writers in the class. so we've taken different paths. he's turned into a spalding-gray-esque monologuist/performer who gets reviewed in the new york times and i do medical transcription in tacoma and half-heartedly aspire to peel off the faces of dead people as a diener. according to the daisey article linked above, mike hasn't had the easiest time of it. and i never wanted to perform in front of people. shit no. our connexion is the writing, though he does autobiographical stuff and i'm trying to make stuff up, when i'm writing at all. so who knows? why this guy's discipline and success get my goat and mailman's doesn't, i don't know. that's actually a bit curious, perhaps.

anyway. i'm trying to get in to talk with one of multicare's pathologists this week or next week. maybe i'll get a chance to see if i have the stomach for this gruesome work.

distant deaths

we had a bit of sad news today. kara's aunt called at about 6 this morning to let us know that kara's sister melani died (in texas). she was in her 50s and had hepatitis; apparently she was a bit of a drinker and her death is not much of a surprise. kara hadn't seen her in many years but they reconnected by phone a couple of years ago. and my mom's best friend also passed away this past week, on tuesday the 15th (in colorado), of complications of copd. her passing also was not a shock, but no less upsetting or cause for reflection.

mailman, pullman

i finished mailman's novel the other day and am on to philip pullman. because the movie's coming out on dvd in a few weeks, and it has daniel craig in it. but anyway - the witch's trinity was very good, especially in its historic detail. that was the main thing, as it was with mailman's first one. she does good research and incorporates that research into her fiction very well, and it was more seamless in this one than the last one. best of all, as it's cool as all get-out that someone i went to college with has been published by random house, reading her inspired me to get back into writing after a few months off. i started a new story this past week. i'm not much for research, so i'm setting my story in the here and now.

but reading isn't the sum total of my life these days. neither is writing, not hardly - my writing habits still leave plenty to be desired (note that i'm blogging right now instead of writing in the few minutes i have before starting work). i've also been wrestling with career choices (though for now i'm sticking with medical transcription, i'm considering pursuing another bachelor's degree, etc, to become a medical examiner's assistant [?!]), still eating mostly low-fat and soft foods, irrigating with a syringe the holes in my mouth where my wisdom teeth once were, attending transcription conferences, watching too much tv, exercising a wee bit (my thighs are sore from doing squats, if you can believe that), and chillin' with the spouse.

can't wait

you've just got to love this boy, don't you? just plain got to. only 285 more days. and so much more can go wrong.

i'm usually quite the npr listener but they're in the midst of a pledge drive at the moment and i don't drive very often these days (mostly i listen to the radio in my car) and in the house i've had cds going rather than the radio of late. so perhaps i'm not as up on george's current foibles as i might be.

i should tighten up, though, because kara and i are going to a taping of wait wait at the end of june! we'll want to be able to call out correct answers, won't we?

just about a couple of books

one week later and i'm pages away from finishing another novel. reading another novel, that is. paul auster is far glibber than dickens, so i get through his books relatively quickly. i'm finding that although his novels' beginnings tend to be especially admirable, the middles are a bit meandering and the ends are a bit thrown together. still, those beginnings, those initial 20 or 40 pages, are something to behold. i think my favorite of his is the book of illusions, and kara's is the music of chance.

i think next i'll read my friend mailman's 2nd novel, the witch's trinity. she was kind enough to send me an advance copy several months ago and i feel i should probably have read it right away, but usually once i acquire a book it has to sit on the shelf and mature, in a sense, before i can pick it up and give it a read. is that weird? regardles, that's probably part of the reason i didn't choose always right away.

98.26%

me oh my. i am 15 pages away from completing bleak house. i have been plowing away at this massive tome for 2 full months. i'm not a fast reader but i like to think i absorb well what i do read. with this book i did flounder some among the myriad characters and plot threads, and i'm not sure these last few pages will answer all the questions i have, but i imagine that is okay. i will finish the book tonight.

what's next? i'm leaning toward nicola griffith's new one, always, which i got in the mail yesterday. i might want something more candy-like, though. something sweeter and lighter. i'll do some poking around my shelves and see what i find.

meanwhile, i'm reveling a bit in this achievement. i enjoyed the book. i liked the characters and i liked the story. perhaps esther was a touch too perfect in her sweetness and goodness and skimpole a tad too - i don't know - i so badly wanted to smack him several times over.