Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006

Catchy Title Needed -- Brain Already Sleeping


Yeah, I know, I missed a day. Sorry. I just hit a wall last night where holiday exhaustion hit standard exhaustion hit sleep deprivation hit bad mood hit not feeling well. It was a freeway pileup of non-entry-writing proportions. So, I went to bed a little early last night, got a little extra sleep, and I don't really feel that much better. However, guilt is a huge motivator.

After a November of NaNoWriMo and a December of Holidailies, I've discovered a few things about myself and my writing. I'm definitely a much better fiction writer when I have the pressure of a deadline looming. I can spin up a descriptive, ficticious scene in an hour, no problem. But trying to be funny or interesting on command? Yeah, not so much, unless you're one of the rare individuals who likes to pan through the dumped-out contents of a crazy woman's brain.

Hell, *I* don't even like to pan through the contents of my brain, and it's MY brain.

Anyhow, I feel much more satisfied with my novel than I do with this journal, were I to compare the two. Though, I don't know if I can really do that, as they're two completely different animals, you know? But I'm glad I did both NaNo and Holidailies, and if they're both around in 2007, I'll be there.

***

So, I watched "The Big Lebowski" last night, at the behest of several of my coworkers. These guys swear by this movie, running lines from it probably half a dozen times a day and then laughing uproariously. I had never seen it, though I do remember when it came out. It didn't look like a movie I would really enjoy, and I was mostly right.

I was cautioned by the guy who loaned me his copy that I would probably need to watch it many times to "get it". I think that the reason he said this was because the movie is so packed with different storylines and different characters that keeping track of everything borders on sensory overload. I felt like, as I was following along with The Dude and all the stuff he was going through, I would get a handle on the current issue and then another completely random issue would develop. Eventually, some of them would tie together, but many of them didn't. They were just kind of there, serving their own purpose and cluttering up the place. Like the Germans/Nihilists? What in the blue blazing Hell was all that? They looked and talked like extras from Saturday Night Live's "Sprockets" skits, for Pete's sake. And the pet marmot? What?

It would take far too long, and far too much brainpower I don't have right now, to try and recreate a summary of what I'm referring to -- if you've seen it, then you know what I'm talking about, and if you haven't, then you might want to see it just to experience the surreality of it. It's a bizarre freaking movie.

It did some things right, and I did rather like this exchange:

The Big Lebowski: "*long speech I don't exactly remember about what it is to be a man* Isn't that what makes a man?"

The Dude: "Mmm. Sure. That, and a pair of testicles."

But overall? Eh. I probably will go ahead and watch it again, just to tell the guys at work that I did, and maybe it will be better the second time around. However, I'm not sure how that'll work.

Alright, it's getting close to midnight, and I'm going to watch a little bit of Lewis Black on cable before I wander off to bed. Have a surreal night.

saturncat at 11:41 p.m.

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