Friday, January 07, 2005 Friday miscellany Hey there. I haven't drunk an entire bottle of wine tonight—J. had one glass, so I only had, um, the other five—but I'm a bit punchy and I haven't posted here for a few days, so I'm throwing a few things at the wall to see if they'll stick. Stand back.
Have you guys noticed this trend in movie advertising? Movie ad: "[Some movie] is the winner of three Golden Globe nominations!" Excuse me, no, you're not. You're the recipient of three Golden Globe nominations. You're only a winner if you win an actual Golden Globe, okay? (Or a Film Critics/People's Choice/Academy/Whatever-the-Hell Award.) Stop trying to make it sound better. Geez, they already stopped saying "And the winner is..." in favor of "And the Oscar goes to..." so they wouldn't hurt anybody's feelings. If they're not even saying you're the winner when you win, you're sure as hell not the winner when they nominate you. Okay?
Philadelphia Traffic Imponderable: When two people run a red light in opposite directions, and one of them is making an illegal left turn, who has the right of way? (Hint: The guy in the biggest car. Or, if they're the same size, the guy in the least-expensive car. You wanna chance your new Beemer against my '85 Saab? I didn't think so.) (God, I miss my '85 Saab. It was dark blue and stick-shift and had no radio or air conditioning and was named Nixon. [Because it had a nose like a weasel.] I went to grad school in North Philly for four years and I was the only person I knew whose car was never broken into. Hell, there were times when I'd've paid people to break into that car. "You want it? If you can get the damn thing started, it's yours!" {I eventually gave it up when the parking tickets got to be too expensive; and buying the third transmission would've cost a lot, too.} Oh well, Nixon; rest in pieces. Lots of pieces. Probably distributed among many Saabs in the Delaware Valley by now.] At any rate, if any asshole in a Beemer had tried to assert his right-of-way over mine in the middle of an intersection when we both had a red light, I'd've gunned the engine and said "Yeah, Beemer boy, crash the fuck into me, I don't even have collision insurance, see if I care." Ha. [I miss you, Nixon.])
I didn't do any New Year's resolutions posts, or seeing-how-I-did-on-last-year's New Year's resolution posts, because I can't recall ever having made a serious New Year's resolution in my life. (I haven't given up anything for Lent since I was in Catholic school, either.) It's not that I don't want to improve myself; just that the Gregorian-calendar year isn't something I feel the need to attach it to. Hell, it's the middle of the fucking winter; you think I want to be standing on a scale next December 31st and seeing if I, for instance, lost the 15 pounds I said I'd lose the previous January so I'd look good in a swimsuit the previous July? Hell no. So fuck it.
But—there had to be a "but" for me to be writing this—but...I want to learn to draw birds. Or to get good at drawing birds. (I'm pretty good at drawing; or I was, back when I had free time and free art supplies.) I have an ulterior motive, which I haven't confessed to anyone but myself and J.; but I'll put this one right out in public for anyone online to see, while the five glasses of wine put the smackdown on my usual inhibitions: I'm going to learn to draw birds. I already bought two books on drawing animals at the art supply store on South St., and ordered an "Artist's Reference" book on birds from Amazon. I've been collecting Peri's feathers in a glass jar (she's molting, and she's not very happy about it), so I can use them as models; and, eventually, I can try to use her as a model, though I imagine she'll be much more interested in perching on the pencil or pecking the paintbrush than in standing still for me. But. Anyway. I'm saying it: I'm going to learn to draw birds. And if I don't, you can call me on it in 2006. Okay? Okay.
So there's that. Now, it's not even 11 p.m. yet, and even though the wine bottle's empty, there's a box of red wine downstairs that will do almost as well now that my quality-receptors are happily down for the count. I'll see you when I see you. G'night...
