Holiday musings

- The Ice Harvest is a solid piece of work. It verges on being funny, and occassionally causes laughter, but it's got it's own zoned out rhythm. At the heart of it is the plight of hitting middle age and looking at the wreckage of one's life. One wonders if Jeremy Piven was too busy for the Piven role Oliver Platt plays. As a Piven Surrogate, Platt is rather good playing the movie entirely drunk. There's a Christmas dinner scene that crackles with nearly (but no quite) the same intensity as a similar one in The Ref. What I think I like about it most is that it's a film noir in a year that has at least three of them (this, A History of Violence and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) all of which reflect different period of noir (KKBB for the early sort of Chandler noir, this for the beginings of the post war moral grays, and AHOV for the later perverse ones).

- I'm going back to Portland tomorrow. I haven't been back in a little over a year. It will be good to see some old friends again. I have for the last couple months plotted out what this Friday is going to be, where I'll be, and even around the times I think I'll be at some. Whom of these people will ask about my wedding? Dunno. Should be fun.

- A year ago I was still in LA, and I was taken in for Turkey day by my good friend Paul, who has done so much for me since I've been here, I have no idea where to start thanking him. All I can say is that a year ago Paul, his wife and child, Chris and his wife and child (whom I whipped at board games all night), Jared and his girlfriend, and Bob and Cathy made me feel home. And part of me wishes I was joining them again. But if I'm going to cornball this paragraph, let it be said I am thankful that Paul is a friend.

- The wife called while I was in the theater. She got in okay. She wished me well. I didn't ask her to call, so I dunno. The world is filled with people, and you meet new ones every day, have interactions, half the time with members of the opposite sex, and you recognize the differences that seperate their sex from yours. All of whom should be functionally compatible with you. Here I am with a wife. And it was such a spur of the moment "Do you mind driving to Vegas" sort of thing. We'd been hanging out every once in a while, she went with me to the BSS show, I took her to see A History of Violence, we would sometimes go to The Well and yell at each other. But I got in that friends mode I hate, and that I let myself fall into cause I couldn't read her. And now we're married, and I'm sure she thinks she can push me around. And she can. Damn it. But she called.