I'd just like to say...

that the cast commentary on the extended DVD of Fellowship of the Ring is hysterically funny.

The things one is reminded of...

Making plans for the NYE 'boink, aliciar remarked about getting lost in NC, which through the usual process of strange brain-connections reminded me of my first solo road trip as a freshman in college, in my first car Myrtle, named after the beach.

Myrtle was a 1978 Chevy Impala station wagon. Brown. Not the kind of car a college student really wants, not even in the top 50, but she was reliable, sturdy--and free (my parents bought her for me). Over the years I did make quite a few good memories in that car, and I ended up keeping her until Ray and I moved to England in January of 1993. By that time she was falling to bits.

I drove from Bloomington to Columbia, SC to spend a weekend with Britton, on whom I had a massive and long-standing crush. It's a nine-hour drive, more or less. I drove alone; many people were astounded that I would do that. I thought nothing of it, and left very early in the morning. Somewhere in the wilds of Kentucky--hadn't seen a town or freeway exit for some miles, anyway--I started to notice the rearview mirror vibrating. I thought that was rather odd, and after a few minutes stopped the car to investigate. I got out and looked around the car. The rear passenger tire's radial belt had split in two width-wise, and the ends were sticking out about a foot each. I was *thisclose* to having had a blowout.

I set to work getting out the spare tire and jacking up the car. Soon a man in a pickup truck, nay, two different men in two different pickup trucks, stopped to offer help. They settled between themselves on who would do the work, and the extra one drove off. I wasn't allowed to do any more of the tire-changing. When he'd finished, he wished me good luck and left. I continued on my way, met Britton only an hour or two later than planned, and first thing the next morning we went to a tire shop to buy a replacement spare.

The tire which had blown had originally been on the car; I can't remember the exact sequence of events which led up to it, but somehow it had migrated from the right side to the left through a course of punctures and use of spares. As I was told by the tire salesman, radials have to stay on the side of the car they're originally installed on. Not a fact of which 18-year-old me was cognizant, but one I've never forgotten since!

This and other such stories are why I'm generally a believer in the goodness of people. The kindness of strangers has saved my ass several times, or simply saved me time or money. I've been hurt far worse by people I knew and loved and by myself than I ever have by strangers.

It's also the reason I try to behave likewise. I believe in paying it forward to increase the amount of kindness and generosity in the world.

Frida

I promised to write about Frida.

Two word review: Loved it.

She was quite a fascinating character. I knew next to nothing about her before seeing the movie, though I had some inklings from the reviews I'd read.

Impression: intensity. Intense colors, intense emotion, intense pain. If the art shown in the film was representative of her work, I don't think I'll be buying any prints: it's not that I don't find them extremely moving. On the contrary. That is exactly the problem with them: they were too gut-grabbing for me to live with them long. But it was made quite clear how she drew upon her own life and pain to create them. And she lived with constant pain. My own crotch ached with a sympathetic pain when she was impaled in the trolley accident as a young girl. I can scarcely imagine going through such torment, and coming out of it with determination and courage as she did, turning it into art...that is beyond my imagination entirely.

The film itself was a work of art: there were collage sequences, dream sequences, sequences that segued into and out of Frida's paintings...it was like a journey inside her mind at times.

It was gratifying to see an open marriage and a bisexual character presented non-judgmentally, even though from the evidence of the film I wouldn't say their version of open marriage was ideal. In fact, I felt angrier with Diego for calling his other women "just a fuck" than I would have if he had showed some actual caring for them. ( Potential spoiler here )

I was highly annoyed by the women sitting next to me who kept commenting on every little thing that happened, but I have to admit to amusement when they gasped at the scene where Frida put her hand up a woman's skirt under a table.

_Honneamise no Tsubasa_

aka _Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise_

Yo, jingoro, I watched it. (Hee, when I bought the video the clerk said "Good movie!")

I don't know what to say. Some staggering animation art, but I'm not sure what I think of the story itself. I may have to watch it again a couple of times, maybe listening to the English soundtrack instead of concentrating on trying to understand the Japanese (and berating myself on only catching about 5 words out of 10). It also weirded me out that the characters and places had names that aren't even pronounceable in Japanese. For example, I kept trying to figure out how the translators had come by "Lhadatt" as a surname.

( Plot synopsis: there be spoilers here )

So what does all of it signify? Am I impressed, or not? I don't know.

About damn time

...that I bled the radiators and checked the pressure in the boiler. It was near zero psi, and should have been at twelve. Well, fixing that should make it warmer in here by morning. Not that it was cold, exactly, but it wasn't as warm and cozy as my memory of winters here would have had it.