I'm the Hero of This Story

Hello friends,

It's a new year and time for a new post. Perhaps one of my resolutions should be to post more often. A weekly writing assignment would not be a bad idea for me. Besides, it might force me to lead a more interesting life just so I can write about it.

Other resolutions? A la Liz Lemon, I want to say yes to life, yes to love, yes to staying in more! I already stay in plenty, but I do want to be open to trying new things, and as I haven't had a date in a year, I should put myself out there more. As Luke Burbank would say, I want to get my health on. I've really let myself go in the last few years--this is a twofold problem of discovering alcohol and discovering how to cook. (How to cook with Grburbank: use butter. use salt. delicious. the end.) My family has a family pass to the local rec center which has elliptical machines and other such nonsense. So I should take part. Besides, I would get to buy gym outfits and create workout playlists. I want to be a better friend--I don't have a lot of friends. Much like Liz Lemon, I don't like a lot of people. So I want to be a better friend to those I do have. Perhaps my biggest resolution is to find that professional library job and start the next phase of my life.

Because being unemployed is lame. Sure it was fun at first--a bit of a break after getting my master's and before starting a professional career (for the rest of my life. or until all my student loans are paid off. same diff.). But I've done diddly-squat with my life in the last six months (see: this blog).

But really, what have I done recently? Well there was my third Thanksgiving dinner, or rather Friendsgiving at Elise's where I had an amateur moment. I hadn't eaten much that day in order to eat more turkey, and then when I got there I quickly drank liquor (g&t, whiskey and coke), high point beer, and wine. Thusly, I passed out on Elise's bed and missed dinner. Fortunately, I didn't throw up as there was no Champagne, Tequila, or Oreos.

Then it was December replete with awkward family parties and yuletide cheer provided by Amazon.com. On Christmas Eve my sister and brother-in-law came over and we all got r/c Hot Wheels. So on Monday, we had the first (and last) annual Burbank Grand Prix. (It did not go well.) Christmas morning we were up bright and early (with no coffee!) to eat Christmas breakfast and open presents. Then I took a nap while my family went to church. At Christmas dinner we had an middle-aged bachelor neighbor over, and it made me realize that when I'm single, childless, and older, I'll have to a find a neighbor family of my own with whom to celebrate Christmas.

I got some cool stuff like Habibi by Craig Thompson, movie tickets to the art house theater, the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (which is mostly the same as The New Best Recipe cookbook just without all the lengthy explanations), the first season of Gilmore Girls, Burberry Touch parfum (I had asked for London, but Macy's lied to my parents and told them that London has been discontinued--not true, shop girl!--so they got Touch instead which is a lot less good), a French rolling pin for perfect pie crusts (along with the vodka pie dough recipe from Cook's Illustrated!), The Lexicon by William F. Buckley, Jr. (which means that many of the citations are from his conservative writings which pisses me off only just a little), Break, Blow, Burn by the provocative Camille Paglia, and Night of Hunters by Tori Amos.

Night of Hunters. What to say? For some it's her best album in the decade since Scarlet's Walk, for other fans it's another straw on the camel's back that started with The Beekeeper. I'm somewhere in the middle. Amos has lost a lot of the passion, rage, and sorrow that won her a large, dedicated fan base. This is probably largely due to marriage, motherhood, and growing older. And maybe she just had a golden decade from 1992 (Little Earthquakes) to 2002 (Scarlet), and now that's over. Anyway, NoH is another concept album, produced by Deutsche Grammophon, that's a 21st century song cycle based on classical music and Irish mythology as we chart the relationship between a couple over the course of a night and how the hunter and hunted exist within all of us. To which I say, "Oh, reallo? I meant to say 'really.' I misspoke. Continue." I have been listening to it a lot over the last week or so, and while I haven't sat down with the liner notes, the lyrics do not seem particularly strong, which is sad because her lyrics were always my favorite part. However, the music (instrumentation and musicianship) is amazing. So much so that I bought the "Sin Palabras" edition ($5 on amazon.com!) which is just the music. If you would like to listen to the original classical pieces that Tori based her variations on you can listen to the YouTube playlist I created here. Lovely.

Then it was Saturday, New Year's Eve. My sister is going on a mission to Anchorage, Alaska, and her farewell was on Sunday, the 1st (at 9:00 am! ugh.), so the Sorenson family party was Saturday. And since many family members were staying overnight, the party continued at our house. This made some of my friends (i.e., Ellen) upset so I swung by Ellen's house (party game, fireworks, cider) and then to Elise's where I actually rung in the New Year with some sort of terrible sparkling raspberry wine and a New Year's kiss. After I drove all the way home I got to sleep on the couch and wake up super early (again with no coffee!) and go to church. Then all sorts of people came to our house and ate and ate and ate.

In the first week of 2012, I've already been the cinema twice, though both movies were 2011 releases. On Monday, Dain and I went to see Fincher's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I hated the book and have mostly forgotten the Swedish film, but I thought the Fincher version was well done. I thought it stayed true to the book while streamlining it in the best way possible (the book needed to be streamlined). It's no Social Network despite Rooney Mara (as an excellent Lisbeth), computer hacking, and Trent Reznor, but it still makes for a dark, visually compelling, well-made film.

On Wednesday I saw Melancholia the cheery film from that most humane and loving of directors, Lars von Trier. While this nihilistic film does end with the utter and total destruction of the planet Earth (NOT a spoiler), I didn't feel it was quite as bleak and hateful as Dogville, the only other von Trier film I've seen. It's an operatic and stunningly visual ode/farewell to his battle with depression in the mode of German Romanticism, and is also indebted to Ingmar Bergman (a positively warm and fuzzy humanist next to von Trier). The next day I made meatloaf.

And if all goes well, I will see Young Adult today. It looks like a delightful dark comedy from Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody. And I love me some Charlize Theron. She's the best!

I've also finished two books this year already! First was Tina Fey's book Bossypants. While it was very funny, I actually liked Mindy Kaling's book better. Not that we have to compare the books, but I did, so whatever. Maybe it's because I'm more in Kaling's target demographic than Fey's. But it's okay, Tina, I still love you! I am basically Liz Lemon.

The other book was By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham. He is back to form after that weird conceptual detour of a novel, Specimen Days. It doesn't quite have the vigor and rough-hewn edges of his first two novels and it may be more polished and precious than The Hours, and possibly sadder than all of his previous books, but it's still a rather good novel and beautifully written. It is Cunningham, after all.

Anyway, that's what's been going on lately. Here's to a happy and more productive 2012!