The week in culture: April 14-20

Watched:
Lots of Monk
The Ten (goofy Ten Commandments comedy from the writers of the skit show The State. very hit or miss, but pretty entertaining throughout.)
Dear Frankie (rewatch of this cute one with Gerard Butler and Emily Mortimer)
You Kill Me (biopic about a ninja stand-up comedian -- not)
The Care Bears Movie (I do have a little brother, after all!)

Read:
America: The Book by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew - I am so behind the times here, but I really liked this one. What dorky fun! Who knew you could make so many clever, knowledgeable jokes about the history and politics of our great nation?
The Key: How to Write Damn Good Fiction Using the Power of Myth by James N. Frey - bought this one about six years ago, I think, and finally got around to it. Frankly, I'm not sure we should take Mr. Frey's grandiose, overblown advice in this dumbed-down Cliffs Notes version of Joseph Campbell. On the upside, it was a quick read.

Heard:
As I mentioned long ago, one of my absolute favorite songs is "God Give Me Strength" from the movie Grace of My Heart. To give you some indication of how much I like it, it was one of the very first songs I ever downloaded from iTunes. Unfortunately, the version iTunes had available wasn't the one from the movie -- it was some watered down version later recorded by the same singer. I'd never been able to find the original film version, which I loved...but finally I tracked it down and a kind soul emailed it to me. I listened with delight. It is mine, all mine.

Celebration of the week:
Passover! I'm not Jewish, but I'll celebrate with just about anybody as long as it involves perfectly cooked green beans (delicious!) and flourless chocolate cake (crazy delicious). Maybe one of these years it'll actually be my turn to recite the ten plagues in Hebrew. That should be a riot.

Highlight of the week:
Bought super-cute shoes -- and they're comfy to boot.

Lowlight of the week::
Migraines. I don't get them very often, but I got two pairs this week -- especially disorienting bouts that completely knocked me on my ass. I get "classic migraines", which means that the standard head pain is accompanied by blind spots, numbness in my face and hands, nausea, dizziness, and mental confusion (particularly trouble finding words). Classic or extra-crappy? You be the judge. I am at least lucky in their infrequency. This week, though, they weren't exactly infrequent. Thursday I had to head home for a mid-day nap to kick one set before returning to work. Then Friday night I was about to bed down when another set kept me awake and queasy till the wee hours. By "set" I mean that I develop one on one side of my head, then when it goes away get an entirely new one, with the full range of symptoms, on the other side. A fucking tea party it is not.

The week in soccer:
I totally dragged after my migraines, and definitely did not give the game my typical level of hustle. I'm pretty sure we lost, and I didn't even care that much. Next week should be better -- for a variety of reasons. Just you wait!

Movies I won't be seeing: The Strangers

I am such a chickenshit.

The weeks in culture: March 24 - April 13

Ummm...better infrequent than never?

Watched:
Another 48 Hours
Beverly Hills Cop III (ridiculous, but we had to finish our Eddie Murphy fest)
Season 1 of Monk (though I fall asleep during the show so much)
I Am Legend
61* (good even if you this baseball is a good sit-down spoiled)
Battlestar Galactica: Razor (rediscovering the love of this one after a long absence)
Things We Lost in the Fire
The Snow Walker
Plenty of basketball...

Read:
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich by Mark Kriegel
Loose Balls by Terry Pluto
Seven Seconds or Less by Jack McCallum

Heard:
Michael Johns' version of "It's All Wrong, But It's All Right" (I don't watch American Idol, but I caught a snippet of this, and damn but isn't this guy a little bit of all right!
A few older ones I love, like Audioslave's "Like A Stone", Roxette's "It Must've Been Love" and...shamefully...Montell Jordan's "Let's Get It On Tonite" (deplore the spelling, can't help but shake my booty to it).

Random activity of the weeks:

Flower arranging! You're looking at the results of a class at Filoli that I was lucky enough to attend. I've never thought of myself as a particularly artsy-crafty person, but I had a good time and I think I learned a bit. The materials we had to use weren't quite my favorite (I prefer more vibrantly colored blooms) but I think it turned out rather nicely. And I definitely appreciate being invited. :)

Link of the week:
Dolly Parton rocks, does she not? She's her own woman, that's for sure. I dig this collection of quotes from the lacquered, bedazzled country queen. Who wouldn't love to have that great a sense of herself? I know I would.

The weeks in soccer:
Plenty of it these past few weeks. Two games a day, lots of scoring, so much so that I can't remember the exact scores. Today we won both my games by a lot, and it was super-hot. Literally. At 8 in the morning, when we realized how comfortable we were (rather than freezing like normal), we knew it was going to be a scorcher.

My highlight of the game was scoring off a corner kick - that I kicked! It felt very "bend it like Beckmann" as I managed, for once (I'm fairly inconsistent when it comes to big kicks), to just launch up a great arc that soared over the players' heads and goalie's hands to land in the far upper corner of the net. It was a beaut.