oscar rant...

another great thing about dating dave the video store guy (as he was affectionately known back before he had a last name): the academy awards are our super bowl. we got together with a couple similarly movie-crazed friends who have cable, ate lots of food, and yelled at the screen all evening.

my traditional set of grievances is shorter than usual... i don't begrudge lotr most of its glory. i liked lost in translation far better, but i understand.

but come on... best adapted screenplay? did they even watch american splendor?!? and best editing to a movie that comes out over three hours?!? (i realize they lost major plot points as is, but i clearly remember my bladder begging for a few more cuts.) but the real joke was best song. the annie lennox thing that everybody was rushing out on during the credits (well, me, anyway...) vs. les triplettes de belleville? or anything from a mighty wind? or school of rock, which didn't even get to the running? or even cold mountain's numbers. geesh.

and i don't care how great sean penn was (haven't seen the movie, so i can't say), bill murray deserved an oscar for his performance. even if johnny depp would've likely had the most entertaining acceptance speech. it would've been nice to see the girl from whale rider win too, and i think we were all rooting for ken watanabe or djimon hounsou for best supporting actor, but again, i understand. and even we amateurs noticed the exceptionally good sound mixing on the last samurai, but hey.

and, um, that's about it. far less outraged than usual. after all, if someone has to sweep eleven of 'em, lotr was far more worthy than titanic.

in fact, i'll shut up now.

it's strange...

sitting here in my only-mildly-cozy yet awfully familiar apartment... and thinking, "this time next week, i won't live here anymore." maybe i'll be here to clean, but it won't be mine. my desk won't be in this corner, the bookshelf not in that one... no job to dread, no nine o'clock phone calls or karaoke nights to anticipate... no trying to trick the faucet into enough hot water to make a decent bath, no drowning out the carpet's mild moldy smell with candles and incense, no trips to the laundromat in the middle of the night.

in a way, i'm watching a piece of myself disintegrate. flaked off, scorned, but i always end up mourning in the end... just a tinge of nostalgia, not a true desire to paste myself back together.

why does a week seem so many magnitudes smaller than two?

i should start packing.