7:05 am - Monday, Aug. 02, 2004
\"We choose to be INSPIRED.\"

The following are excerpts from my "Live Journal" blog:

[Jul. 25th, 2004|02:10 am]

Shitty day at work today.

Came home ready to rant & rave...then saw that I'd gotten an email from my friend Cary; his new baby boy, Donovan, is home from the hospital (Born weeks early, on the 16th, he was in the NICU, and Cary thought that would be the case for at least a few more weeks. But he's been gaining weight every day, is in good health, and they said he could go home).

He included pictures. I'd say this about Donovan: He is very small, and very RED.

But I'm just glad he's okay. For a time, I was dreading Cary telling me "We lost the baby..." (I can't seem to HELP it--I'm a WORRIER. And worrying about something or someone other than myself was...well, it was a pretty weird SENSATION. Honestly, I kind of didn't LIKE it too much. Too HELPLESS of a feeeling. I think I'm going to stick strictly to worrying about MYSELF in the future).

But anyway...

My job.

I recently was telling myself that I have to not focus on my sucky job so much, and instead focus on the un-sucky future and the things I want, rather than what's WRONG and the things I DON'T want.

So of course, immediately upon making that pronouncement, I have the shittiest day at work that I've had in quite some time, testing my resolve to focus my attentions elsewhere.

But that really IS what I have to do. Borders is always going to be...well, Borders. And it will not reward my caring about it, obsessing over it, being angry about it, or anything else. It's just a big corporate monolith. I don't mean shit to Borders, so I really, in self defense, have to put myself in the position of not giving a shit about Borders.

It's just a job. An unrewarding, spirtually draining, poverty-level wage job. It is not worthy of me, or my energies. It is not worthy of my caring for one second. Wasting any feelings on that job, and that place, is something I'm going to quit doing, starting now.

I like my coworkers. I'll do what I need to do to keep the job, and beyond that, I'm going to save myself for shit that's worth my focus.

Acting.

Saw Before Sunset this past "weekend"....As an actor, the movie made me...well, it made me want to actually ACT again. That would be nice...

I want to be OBSESSED with acting. I'd like to be acting in plays, going to classes, auditioning for commercials and tv and movies, seeing movies and plays, watching the best of what cable and HBO have to offer, and basically seeing everything in terms of acting.

But how to DO all that? Where's all the time and money coming from?

That's the question.

And I want to find the ANSWER.

Spiderman II...and other stuff [Jul. 13th, 2004|12:06 pm]

Saw "Spiderman II" this past Wednesday.

I had some quibbles--For a guy with a "secret identity", it seemed like he was taking his mask off every other second--but on the whole, I was quite pleased; for my money, it was the most all around SOLID "superhero movie" I've ever seen.

I liked the ACTION much better this time out then I did with the first movie, which means either they've gotten better with the CGI, or I've just gotten USED to it (I think part of it is that "Doc Ock" was a great cinematic villian, with those "tentacles", which were VERY well done).

I continue to be impressed with Kirsten Dunst. Initially, I didn't think she was the right choice for "Mary Jane" (Frankly, I didn't think she was PRETTY enough; Mary Jane is supposed to be super-model gorgeous. At least she is in the comics). But she's really SOLD me. There's something very appealing about her. I guess I'm a sucker for "sad girls" (As evidenced by the fact that I found Selma Blair's "Liz Sheridan" in HELLBOY very attractive as well)

I was a little concerned about the ending: If James Franco is in the next movie as the new "Green Goblin", they will HAVE to do something about that sucky MASK. But anyway...

Speaking of "Superhero Movies", McG. has dropped out of "Superman"...again.

Just as well, in my mind--I'd rather see a REAL director get that franchise anyway (A la Bryan Singer and "X-Men", or Sam Raimi and "Spiderman").

I used to be really excited about the summer movies. It was hard to get to everything that I wanted to see (If I missed a movie when it opened, by the next weekend, there was something ELSE I wanted to see, and I'd have a hard time "catching up"). But this year...nothing's really "floating my boat".

I don't think I'm "feeding my soul" enough out here in L.A., which is a big part of why I'm struggling with depression a lot lately.

I am reading a great deal--A lot of Larry McMurtry lately ("Lonesome Dove" is maybe my favorite novel EVER)--but while I'm ENJOYING it, it doesn't seem to be helping me "turn the corner" on this blue mood I've been wrestling with. But I'm sure it's better for me than spending a comparable amount of time aimlessly surfing the web.

My big task these days, I think, is going to be figuring out how to keep myself entertained and uplifted when "nothing's going on". Even if there's nothing particularly BAD happening, I tend to get down eventually if I feel like nothing especially GOOD is happening.

Got the Land's End stuff I ordered off the website (It was in today's mail). Haven't tried anything on yet, and wasn't initially sure about some of my choices for shirt colors, but still pretty cool to get such a big thing in the mail (I often think about how FUN mail used to be when you were a kid, and how generally UN-fun it becomes with adulthood...and BILLS).

Well, I could drone on some more, but then I wouldn't be napping...

Well, some of that seemed like yesterday's newspaper to me now; the Spiderman review is very old news at this point, and in the time since I wrote those entries, I've "test driven" all the Land's End stuff, and been very happy with all of it (Thanks Mark and Jane!).

I just thought this would be an easy way to go back and "pick up" some stuff I'd missed in here.

Anyway...

Speaking of "stuff I missed in here", I saw John Edward's and John Kerry's DNC speeches last week.

According to some sources, Edwards was "a little off his game" (I did notice he "muffed his lines" a couple times), and I can hardly think of a worse time for him to be "off his game" than the DNC. But as for me, and my personal reaction to his speech, I've never heard the man speak before, and I enjoyed it. I ended up more enthused about him when he was done than when he started.

Ditto with John Kerry.

There's been so much press about what a dull speaker Kerry can be that the bar was set pretty low, perhaps, but that said, he addressed the things I wanted to hear addressed, and I thought he made his case very well.

I thought about it afterwards: I'm not a big "political junky", and while I define myself as "liberal", I've never made a big effort to actually do much about my beliefs (Beyond voting).

But I'm realizing, thanks to our current administration, that I do have patriotic feelings.

I didn't always realize this was important to me, but I really do want America to be admired and respected in the world, instead of just hated and feared. While I know there will always be enemies, it seems like now we have precious few friends around the globe, and that bothers me (It also scares me; Bush and Cheney don't seem to think we need allies in the world, but I do).

But more than that, I want to believe all that "Shining Beacon On The Hill"/ "Land Of Opportunity" stuff, as corny as it may sound to some.

And sadly, I don't believe that right now. When I think about America, I get discouraged and depressed, because we're in a war that doesn't make any sense to me, I feel like we've been lied to, our rights have been curtailed under the guise of "fighting terrorism", and the only constituency that really seems to matter in Washington is the constituency of rich white men.

I think everyone in America should have health care. I don't think there should be such a thing as "the working poor". I don't think a single child in America should be going to bed hungry or uncared-for. I think anyone who wants to go to college should be able to go to college. I want it to still be possible for anyone who works hard in America to get ahead.

I'd like there to be a stop to corporate welfare (And while there's probably no stopping corporate "outsourcing" of jobs, I don't think the government should be giving companies tax breaks to do it).

And let gay people marry each other if they want to (It continues to be a mystery to me how you can justify laws against it). Let's focus on what the real problems in this country are.

I could go on, but you get the idea--I envision an America that does not currently exist.

But as I think Kerry said in his speech, it is not un-patriotic to assume that America can do better; on the contrary, it is the soul of patriotism.

And I'm a patriot, it turns out.

Who knew?

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