Miscellany

This is mostly going to be a post of miscellany.  I have done nothing at all that’s exciting in at least a week, so I’m having a hard time coming up with ways to paint my life as exciting.   After all, isn’t that the point of a blog?  I’ve been following Neil Gaiman’s blog and I’m happy he’s back at it again.  I feel a small twinge of disappointment, though, every time I go to the site and there is not a new one.  So in that spirit, I’m just posting something anyway.

Brian and I had a lovely date night last night.  We ate salmon and eggplant Parmesan at Café Lucca on antique chairs.  Then we went to the movie theater in the building Brian works and watched a screening of The Great Gatsby (the Baz Lurman version).  I did not hate it, and I expected to loathe every minute of it.

The night started off with a lecture on green screening, then moved to the film itself.  It was hokey, over the top, and not historically accurate.  I abhorred the book and found myself wanting to slap sense into every one of the characters, even Nick.  I didn’t have the same impulse in the movie.  I had fun following the little seeded clues to the end, the realization of the green light and the importance of the fancy, custom car that seem like nothing but are ultimately plot points.  I liked the echoing of the candles when Gatsby and Daisy dance, the white flowers when they meet, and how both of them were present at his funeral.  I liked looking for green screen.  I enjoyed myself even though I didn’t enjoy the film, despite its beauty.

Applications are coming up sooner than I like to pretend they are.  That is what I’ve spent most of my week doing.  For better or worse, it will all be submitted fifteen days from now.  I’d better do re-writes on that sadistic statement of intent right away.  If nothing else, at least I won’t have to worry about pulling intents out of my bum and trying to make them sound pretty.  That has been the worst of grad school, by far.