on the road again

i am getting ready to drive up to the UP around noon today. ellyn got a gig working as a nanny at the huron mountain club through frank and i am driving her and her friend kate up there today. it is about a 7 hour drive if you don't stop. on a positive note i will not have the twins (who had their 2nd birthday sunday!!!!). this means the trip should be a lot less stressful and we can stop and eat and maybe swim in lake michigan.

this will be the first time i have ever spent a significant amount of time away from the babies. it will not be long enough though--i am leaving the UP at about 11am tomorrow morning after dropping off the girls. i got some books on cd (kurt vonnegut---Breakfast of Champions, richard russo---Empire Falls and two terry gross fresh air collections). I also have XM in the car again.

i have been watching a lot (for me) movies. I watched the documentary about the dandy warhols and brian jonestown massacre, DIG. I really liked it. i am about halfway through NIGHTS OF CABIRIA(sp???) by Fellini. I really like Fellini movies. I also rented the first season of Penn and Teller's BULLSHIT. i don't have showtime and have been out of the loop so i haven't heard about this show until recently. i liked the machinist. i also watched stephen fry's movie BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS based on evelyn waugh's vile bodies. i bit too british for me.

ellyn's friends went to lollaplozza in chicago and got her a teagan and sarah t-shirt. (do i get credit for introducing her to T & S ???? nooo.....) harry has been in wisconsin w/ his aunt, uncle and cousins for the past week.


our family tradition is that whenever we go on a road trip we have to listen to willie nelson on the road again. ellyn's friend will have to be introduced to this practice and have to learn that it does not stop getting played until everyone sings along.


*

a defense of charlie and the chocolate factory

i just read a somewhat nasty review of CCF in the New Yorker. i am somewhat dismayed by all the attention to the source of inspiration for depp's wonka and some people feeling that burton's addition of the backstory for wonka was unfaithful to dahl and a way to get his preoccupations into the story. i am in no way a big fan of burton's. i really liked beetlejuice and ed wood. i appreciated edward scissorhands but just couldn't like it as much as i wanted to. i went and saw sleepy hollow and loved the look and feel of the movie but felt that as far as the story went it was missing. planet of the apes sucked. i love ewan macgregor but just was left cold by big fish. as sarah commented i liked the idea of getting to accept your parents for who they are and how sometimes buying into their visions of who they hoped they would be or are is a sign of love but i had to force myself to watch the whole movie.

back to CCF.
1. if you have ever read any of roald dahl's books how could you make criticisms about a character in a movie based on one of his books as being creepy??? i don't think the character of wonka was that likeable in the book. in his books the kids are the heroes because the horrors they have faced in life have not yet fazed them and warped them. the aunts in james and the giant peach are not a bit over the top and creepy?
2. for roald dahl family was always a centerpiece of any of his works. this does not necessarily mean one's biological family but the family one creates or finds for herself to help her make it through the world. james and the animals in the peach. matilida and miss honey in matilida. is tim burton being completely untrue to dahl and tacking on a direction to the story that makes no sense? in the book the whole idea is not that wonka needed to have a child of his own but that his creation meant nothing without someone to share it with. that is what a family is for dahl--someone to share your vision.


were there flaws in the movie? yes. but it is visually stunning and the acting was superb. it will be like the wizard of oz---a classic. fuck all this michael jackson wonka connection.

alcohol and the teenager....brought to you by Smirnoff Vodka

it was a quite sunday. we dropped off the twins at the in-laws and worked on some stuff around the house. ellyn hung out w/ some friends and we picked her up and we all went over to my in-laws for dinner. ellyn was going to go see charlie and chocolate factory and sleep over a friend's house so we dropped her off there.

we took the babies out for a drive at about 10:30pm and went to bed early at about 11pm. long story short we cannot hear the phone ring upstairs and at about 1am my ex-husband came over because he had been trying to call and no one answered so he thought maybe something was wrong. my daughter had been trying to get ahold of us since about 11 and finally had to call her dad.

she did not go to the movies. instead she hung out w/ friends and they got their hands on some smirnoff. they decided doing shots sounded like a good idea. ellyn soonly started on a crying jag and that is when she tried calling me. a little bit after this she started puking. she ended up calling her dad to come and pick her up.

i have always told her that i knew that she would experiment w/ drinking and that if things get out of control and she feels scared, etc. she should call us. i am ver yglad and relieved that she did call us. but that doesn't mean that we approve of her drinking. we took her cell phone for a week and grounded her for two weeks. she claims that this is way too harsh.

this is when parenting is a job. what to do? of course i drank in high school but i think my parents should have been more stable and enforced rules more. both of them were too screwed up to do those things. i ended up ok but i went ellyn to both have freedom and have limits and boundaries. she already told me that she will just not tell us next time because she got punished when she told us this time. but i cannot be guided by her threats. we have to be there for her but also punish. we are parents not friends.

now for a quick complete change of subjects.

i am watching a documentary about Z channel. z channel was the first pay cable station but it was only in LA. the programmer jerry harvey was a movie's freak movie's freak.

yesterday we drove out to grand haven and got out to the beach at about 4pm and swam a bit and played with the babies in the sand and the water. the sky was blue, the water was warm and clear and sand warm and soft. it was the first time we have been out there since the babies were born. we are still able to get out and do things in a very limited way with the babies. if we had one baby it would be hard but having two makes things painful and difficult.

i am so bored

i am in a bad mood. i don't know why either. it has been very hot here and very muggy. i get cranky when it is hot.

i did go and see two movies this weekend. i went w/ harry and saw CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and ellyn and i went and saw WEDDING CRASHERS. i really like both of them. i like the actor who played charlie bucket's dad--Noah Taylor. he was in SHINE and another movie where he plays adolf hitler (it is a bit odd but very good). it was finally something good from tim burton since ed wood. i thought planet of the apes, mars attacks, and big fish all sucked. i don't know why people liked BIG FISH. i like albert finney in just about anything but i thought it was a waste of time.

WEDDING CRASHERS. i like owen wilson and vince vaughn. i even liked starsky and hutch. vince vaughn does the vince vaughn schtick well.

i don't feel bad watching mindless fluffy entertainment product. if it is decent mindless fluffy and entertaining.

jay has an easy rotation this month so i am seeing a lot of him. he is working on the wainscoting in our bathroom as i write. our friend frank put in a sink, vanity and wainscoting back in february and we have not got into painting or finishing it off yet.

obsessions

it is a part of my nature to get obsessive about things. i don't mean in any 16 year-old-girl obsessive stalker romantic way more of intellectual obsessions. this is what probably led me to go to grad school for philosophy. to do graduate study the object of your study has to be somewhat of an obsession. even though after many, many years of said study the obsession can be drained dry. i tend to jump from obsession to obsession although obsession b might be related to obsession a.

for instance i have always liked wilco. recently my liking has turned into an obsession. i read the kot biography of them and it talked about jeff tweedy reading henry miller so i went to the MSU library and picked up some miller (i had always meant to read some anyway and my friend frank had just read either of tropic of cancer or capicorn (i always get those two mixed up)). i picked up his book of essays and it is called STANDING STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD and one of the essays is MY LIFE AS AN ECHO. if you know your wilco one of the songs off the last album is HUMMINGBIRD. and the first line of this song is--his goal in life was to be an echo. this causes me to become more obsessive. but as i said above it is more an intellectual obsession--an obsession w/ an idea or ideas. hey, what can i say it occupies my time and keeps my mind busy. don't worry jeff tweedy should not be concerned--it is no way a groupie thing. (anyway i find john stirratt much more attractive and the man is a nice dresser w/ excellent taste in shoes.)

i am totally ok w/ being a stay-at-home mom. i have made this decision freely. recently i noticed that perhaps i do need more intellectual stimulation. my husband has to take a surgery test every january (ABSITE). all surgery residents must take this test and get ranked by their percentile about their knowledge of clinical care, basic sciences, etc. i have been reading my husband the ABSITE study guide when we drive around and then i started taking notes from his HUGE textbook CURRENT SURGICAL THERAPY so i could help him study. this is not to say that i understand much of what i am reading but....then today i realized--"WHAT IN THE HELL AM I DOING???" is this how desperate i am for an intellectual challenge that i will set myself the goal of reading a 1,500 page textbook of surgery???!!!!!! my husband in no way, shape or form asked me to do this. this task would probably be in no way helpful to him.

maybe i should take the LSAT and go to law school. what i like about law school is that it is short enough and demands you to study but not be obsessive about it in the way that grad school does. part of my reason for dropping out was i realized i could not devote myself to it in the way that a career in it would have demanded. no offense to lawyers, but although the law might be challenging i don't see lawyers as devoting themselves totally to the law and the ideas it is made up of.

i was actually considering getting the textbooks for the first year classes at UofM law and going through them myself.

AM I BEING CRAZY? IS THIS MY BRAIN TELLING ME I NEED TO BE CHALLENGED?

(i got a free copy of PASTE magazine in the mail w/ a free cd and dvd sampler. i also got two movies from NETFLIX--THE MACHINIST (christian bale is one of my favorite actors) and the first episode of the PBS documentary about NY.)

I AM HAPPY.

the truth might be out there

my husband had the weekend off so we got to spend time together. on saturday we took the babies to the detroit zoo. i am an introvert that does not really enjoy being in a crowd of people. the zoo was busy. zoos have also tried to make themselves better places for the animals--which means trying to make the animals' areas more natural and not just put them in cages. this means you cannot really see anything. we did ride the mini-train around though.

on sunday we had the grandparents watch the babies and we went to barnes and noble and i read 3/4 of the wilco biography by greg kot. then we went to crunchy's and had burgers. crunchy's has the best burgers i have ever had.

i, as of yet, have not watched any movies on the AFI list. i did finally watch some of my netflix rentals. i watched the icelandic slacker movie( 101 Reykjavik) that my friend frank recommended and enjoyed it. last night i watched THE DECLINE OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE a french canadian movie from 1986. they just made a second part to it a couple of years ago called BARBARIAN INVASIONS. i watched that last fall and loved it and finally rented it. i have been trying to watch a movie every night after the babies finally get to bed (about 10:30-11:00). i could spend the time reading but i find that when i read i tend to fall asleep.

holy shit cannot i not take madonna. i could take her when she was superficial and slutty but the whole kabbalah thing is crazy. i also read the interview w/ her in Ladies Home Journal and she was talking about when she got pregnant (at age 38) she finally started thinking about the meaning of life and her place in the world. holy fucking head up your ass. now she still has her head up her ass but she thinks she is wise. she also talked about how when her daughter doesn't clean her room she goes in with a garbage bag and puts her clothes in it and hides it and she has to 'earn' her clothes back. does anyone else find that sorta mommie dearest like???

i also like how tom cruise thinks he knows about the history of psychiatry. scientologists--kirstie alley, tom cruise, lisa marie presley, juliette lewis---when you think about these people do you think..."wow they have really got life and this whole thing figured out. what's their secret?" no you think "they are all batshit crazy" kirstie alley???? lisa marie presley? plus they all seem to have the IQ of rabbits. who said "be suspicious of those who claim to know the Truth, trust those who say they are searching for Truth." (hopefully i am not attributing deep meaning and depth to something said by fox mulder on x-files.)

i downloaded feist and tegan and sarah. i like the tegan and sarah. it is one of those albums that you kinda like the first time you listen to it and then it sticks in your head and you like it more and more w/ each listening.

ellyn has been gone nearly a week. harry left w/ his dad on friday. i was actually considering driving to their cottage in canada and seeing them because i miss them so much. it is only three hours away. i am quite pathetic. they always go to the crane family cottage for about a week or two in the beginning of july. for this reason i really don't do much for the 4th. i don't go to a parade and i don't go to fireworks. both of these things involve crowds and if you remember what i said at the beginning of this entry you would know why this is not exactly my favorite holiday.