I have spent the entire day sitting in the backyard.

I haven't done this practically all summer, what with TiVo and all, but I got up this morning and went out to get breakfast and it was so stunning out that I came home, slopped the cats, gathered up my birthday cds, and headed out into the backyard.

I went back inside a few time to indulge sudden urges like shaving my legs and washing my feet and getting some fingernail polish and a new book and a soda, but mostly I'm just sitting out here listening to bluegrass in my underwear, drinking my rapidly warming Pepsi, occasionally dragging the cats out of the garage and attempting to jam the door shut enough so that they can't get back in there. I didn't even check email until after 3p.

At one point I was sitting under the happy porch, driven into the shade by the slightly too intense sun, listening to my boyfriend and birthday twin Barry on the cd player, and the cicadas were whirring away, watching the bees rolling in ecstasy on the sunflowers, and the bubbles float away that the kids were blowing over my head, and thinking that what I am right now is perfectly happy.

I really do love my life.

So, yesterday I got into work to the news that the Controller was letting the department go home at 3p, which I thought clearly meant that the Controller wanted to go home at 3p, but I was wrong. He wanted to go home at 12.30p.

I had been planning to stay late, but what the hell, I'm always looking gift releases in the mouth, and this time I decided to damn well go. I didn't until 5p, but that was fair, since I only get in at 11a. I decided to go see more movies, but first I was getting a new pain of jeans.

My jeans ripped in like March or something, but I found a pair of jeans leggings that I had gotten a few years before but never worn and decided that they would make a good stopgap, even though they had no pockets, but I ended up procrastinating so much that they wore out as well, and when I realized yesterday that they were wearing a hole in my inner thigh, I decided that I would hie me to Modell's.

I found a pair that fit, forgetting the rule that you should buy a pair that is too tight, because already today they have gotten too loose, but hey, I have new jeans! I am not complaining.

After the jeans I went back to the AMC for another movie orgy!

I was late, but the first film was Shreck, which I have seen before, and so the fact that I missed the first ten minutes meant little. There was a noisy audience of children who clearly have not been out in public before, but most of the film was noisy enough that it didn't matter. What a swell film. It's so detailed that there is always more to see. Can't wait until the DVD, I hear there'll be over two hours of extras.

The second film was Session 9, with my beloved David Caruso, and it absolutely kicked the ass of everything else I have seen lately, except for Ghost World. It's a small independent film about a group of workmen clearing the asbestos out of an old mental hospital, and it is without question, the most terrifying, atmospheric film I have seen in many a day.

The mental hospital itself is a character, and apparently they filmed in a real one--they couldn't have built a set that was anything like this place if they had tried for the rest of their lives.

It's one of those scripts that unfold like an onion (like an ogre!), layer upon layer, and all of the actors inhabit their characters fully, and the way the hospital is shot, it seems to grow. It's an astonishingly good movie, and the audience was quite as the grave, except for two girls who started to giggle with nerves towards the end.

As I walked out, a guy who had also been sitting in the front row said to me, "That was really something, wasn't it?" and I answered, "I saw The Others yesterday, and The Others just wishes it was this scary!"

Then I was going to leave, but Planet of the Apes was about to start in the theatre next door, so I thought what the hell, and snuck in! I was pretty sure that I would resent paying money to see it.

And boy, was I right. I almost resented the time it took up, but not entirely. The basic plot was good, the ape movement was incredible, just brilliant, the movement coaches should be lauded to the skies, the art direction was amazing, and some of the acting was just terrific, but my God the script and the directing was bad!

There was no pace, things seemed to take forever for very little of interest to happen, and nothing got the audience emotionally invested in the story, so that when the surprises popped up you would think, "O, that sure is interesting!" but it wouldn't make you any more interested in the movie.

And the acting that wasn't terrific (Paul Giamatti as the orang slave trader, Kris Kristofferson, who proved in a tiny role that he has more charisma in his little finger than ol' Marky Mark has in his entire being and six feet around him, and David Warner) just sucked rocks. Particularly Tim Roth, whom I didn't think was capable of giving such an appalling performance, but I clearly was quite mistaken. He was like a panto villain, like John Lithgow in Buckaroo Banzai (a quite brilliant performance in the structure of that film, but which wouldn't work almost anywhere else). And the girls, Helena Bonham Carter and the Playboy bunny with the long blonde curls, turned out to just be in the film to simper at Marky and glower at each other.

It was one of those movies where everyone loved and followed and feared the hero because the script told them to, not because the actor brings anything to the role to make these reactions true. It needed Russell Crowe in Gladiator mode, not this noodle pretending to be an actor.

Got another birthday present today! Stef sent me Almost Famous and the movie that I adore but Cynthia hates with every single fibre of her being, Being John Malkovich. Thanks, Stef!!

Today's horoscope:
Your child, grandchild, or inner child feels torn between following the exact letter of the rules and rebelling. Combine tradition and innovation.

One year ago today:
Boy, do I ever take advantage of living right up by the greatest city that the 20th century produced, or what?

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Last Updated Sat 25 August 17:14:09 2001