Monthly Archives: January 2005

Million Dollar Baby

Posted by lorie on 1/31/2005 10 comments

Million Dollar Baby affected me in ways I can’t seem to explain. I saw it last night with Ginny and Jamie and have not stopped thinking about it since.

I should start off by pointing out that I love Clint Eastwood wholly and unabashedly ever since I studied some of his work for a class in film school. I think the man is brilliant and wise, and he’s in the top five list of people I’d be honored to have lunch with someday.

But this film – it goes beyond that. I can’t say much about the plot without ruining the experience for you, and I’d much rather you all went and saw it yourselves, and felt it for yourselves. I will say that the cinematography is beautiful and spare, as is the score, and that I think it may be Eastwood’s best work as a director and as an actor. I think the character development is superb. I think Eastwood does such a good job here that there were times when I was uncomfortable watching, feeling like an intruder on someone else’s private moments. I think this film is more than deserving of any awards it may win, with the possible exception of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for which Morgan Freeman was nominated. Don’t get me wrong – I love Morgan Freeman and I think he’s a great actor – but I didn’t see this role as a major breakout performance for him. A lot of people have compared it to his performance in The Shawshank Redemption, and I’d have to agree with them.

I think you should all drop whatever you’re doing and go see it sooner rather than later, and I think I’ll plan to come back and write more about it when I’m ready – whenever that might be.

Progress is Progress

Posted by lorie on 1/28/2005 6 comments

Ginny began driving again in September or thereabouts, soon after learning to walk again and about six months after the accident. She had been driving our family’s old 1992 Dodge Caravan.

Yesterday, she went and got herself a new Jeep Liberty. And this time she made it home.

Eleven Questions

Posted by lorie on 1/27/2005 2 comments

One of those survey things that gets passed around from place to place. I got mine from Beth, who got hers from a few different places. I thought some of these questions were interesting.

Using Mapquest, how many miles is it from your house to your parents’ house?
I don’t have to mapquest it, since I live with them.

Google your first and last name, in quotes. How many results were found?
8, and 6 of them are actually me – mostly work-related stuff.

What room in your house is too small?
I guess the “family room” could stand to be bigger. That’s where we spend most of our time and it’s rather crowded with all of us there.

What room is too large?
None, really – most of the rooms are about the same size. It’s funny how you fill up the amount of space you have available – we used to live in tiny, tiny house, and didn’t know what to do with ourselves when we first moved to this much larger one.

Name of your third grade teacher:
Miss Cory. I think she is married now, though.

How much money did you make at your first job?
$5.50, rockin’ it at the Burger King.

Favorite donut:
Like Beth, I’m a fan of Boston cream. (Creme? I don’t know.) I don’t eat a lot of doughnuts these days, but I also like blueberry cake doughnuts, maple frosted, and the plain old glazed. I loathe crullers, though. Hate them.

Name(s) of your next door neighbor(s):
On the right – Nanie, my grandmother. On the left – I think the father’s name is Jerry, but around my house we call them the Cletuses.

Genre of music you can’t stand:
I pretty much hate Christian contemporary. Sorry.

Last thing bid on on ebay:
It was a 72-pin connector to replace the bad one in the Nintendo I bought on ebay just the week before.

How much cash is in your wallet?
$5.20. Sadly, until my dad came by my office and loaned me four dollars, it was $1.20.

I’ll Do What I Can So You Can Be What You Do

Posted by lorie on 1/26/2005 3 comments

So I’ve been trying this thing where, instead of making a list of all the stuff I have to do every day, I’m making a list of all the stuff that I actually DID. Sometimes, this actually works.

The weather’s really nice and I’m kind of pissed off about it because it’s not going to be nearly so warm tomorrow.

I just finished The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. I like her a lot and really enjoyed this novel, and recommend it highly. Now I’m reading Diary, by Chuck Palahniuk, and am finding it necessary to read only a few pages at a time or else I start getting all depressed, and I’m not even a hotel waitress with a comatose husband so what the hell?

I have “Coast to Coast” by Elliott Smith stuck in my head.

I have a sort of writer’s block that’s really pissing me off.

I owe emails to about five people that I really like and want to write to, but I also have writer’s block about email, as it turns out.

I really need a haircut, like whoa.

I had Chinese takeout for lunch and I can smell it in the trash can and ew. It wasn’t even that good when I was eating it, but I figure that Balance Bars are not quite a balanced diet, no matter what they’re called, and that I should actually get lunch once in a while.

I just wanted to share.

Johnny

Posted by lorie on 1/24/2005 2 comments

As a child, one of my greatest dreams was to one day be a guest on Johnny Carson.

I was so invested in this goal that I came up with a number of ways to achieve it. I figured I could do one of the following:

  1. Learn to do some kind of bizarre, newsworthy trick;
  2. Score a 1600 on my SATs; or
  3. Win the National Spelling Bee.

I kept trying to come up with bizarre, newsworthy tricks, but nothing I thought of seemed bizarre or newsworthy enough to draw the great Mr. Carson’s attention. Since I was a precocious, cocky little girl, I was sure I’d score a 1600 on my SATs, but frankly, I didn’t want to wait that long. So I figured I’d just win the National Spelling Bee.

I spent hours upon hours practicing for and competing in spelling bees between the fifth and eighth grades with this goal in mind. Although I was an excellent speller and had pride in my ability to spell lots of obscure words, that wasn’t what drove me. The promise of scholarship money didn’t really do it for me either. When I was frustrated and had been studying for hours, and dinner was getting cold, and I was missing every third word I spelled, the promise that kept me going was that if I worked hard enough, and won the National Spelling Bee, eventually I would sit in a chair next to Johnny Carson.

Johnny retired the year before I aged out of competition, and as I worked to prepare for that last year of bees, I was always a little disappointed, knowing that even if I did win, I wouldn’t get to talk about it with Johnny.

As he was for so many others, Johnny Carson was a defining icon of my childhood. Being allowed to stay up late enough to watch Johnny was a big deal. I have memories of returning from trips to Iowa to visit my grandparents, bringing suitcases and coolers into the house while Johnny made jokes in the background, his voice filtering through the screen door out into the summer nights.

After hearing on the news last week that Johnny had been feeding some jokes to David Letterman, we were talking about him around the house, and I commented that I thought his death was one that would really upset me. Only a few days later, I learned that I was right.

This morning, I dawdled in the house while getting ready for work, watching endless clips and tributes on the Today show, and when I finally forced myself to turn off the TV and leave the house, I was smiling and a little sad.

Goodbye, Johnny.

(Excellent article here.)