1. Woof! Woof! Woof!
"What's that, girl? Timmy has fallen down the well?"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"And the bank robbers are hiding out in Smuggler's Cave?"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"And a randomly-chosen quote from Larry King's old USA Today column as the title for a post is meant to signify yet another Random Thoughts entry? Thanks, girl! I didn't know that!"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"No, I'm sorry, we ran out of Snausages. I think there's still some Dog Chow--"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"Next trip into the store I'll get some more--"
Woof! Woof! Woof!
"Why are you looking at me like that, girl? Why are you--Oh my God!"
WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!
"AAIIEE!!"
2. So what's the deal with the economy? It's terrible, it's not so bad, it's worse than you think, it's getting better, no it's not...I can't wrap my head around all this. Here in my world, everything sucks, but it always has--I'm not paid enough for the work I do, health care is too expensive, I can't afford to move to a better place to live.
Of course, I'm pretty far down the socio-economic scale. Now that the rest of the world is experiencing similar problems, you'd think somebody would do something about it. Unfortunately, Team Obama seems most concerned with protecting the portfolios of hedge-fund managers. This is change?
3. Speaking of depressing things you might expect me to write about, I made a conscious decision to not offer any thoughts about the suicide last week of Nicholas Hughes, the forty-seven year old son of Sylvia Plath. The whole sad story seemed tailor-made for me--depression as an inherited trait, self-pitying artistic types, plus an opportunity to wander through my own bleak back pages, to offer up the story behind every scar on my wrist.
But that would almost seem like self-parody, and I was already dwelling in a fairly dark place when the news broke, and oddly enough, sometimes I really do have the common sense to avoid things that might make me even more depressed.
4. Is this going to be the year of the hipster kiddie movie, or what? We've already had Henry Selick's sublime Coraline, which bored mall kids even as it excited black-clad absinthe drinkers of all ages, later this year we'll see Wes Anderson's adaptation of Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox...and there's this.
Never mind that it's Where The Wild Things Are, already the Catcher In The Rye of moody five-year-olds everywhere. But directed by Spike Jonze (an inspired choice fully endorsed by Maurice Sendak, God bless him), scripted by Dave Eggers and featuring music by Karen O? Holy crap! This is either going to be the greatest movie in the history of everything, or a big steaming pile of Wild Thing scat. All I know is they'd better use that Arcade Fire song from the trailer in the movie itself, because the combination of it and Jonze's inspired imagery has pretty much got me more excited than I have been for any movie since...well, since Coraline.
5. I was going to say something about Sarah Palin, who has unaccountably remained on the national stage despite the wishes of decent people everywhere, but I realized that in order to do such a thing I'd have to actually read articles that would likely quote her, and I'd be confronted again by the astonishing depths of her shallowness, and well, I just woke up and my day hasn't been ruined yet so why start now and, seriously, could this sentence run any longer?
6. Random Thoughts post? Then I'm required by law (there are some amazingly draconian regulations around here) to mention the cats at some point. They're curled up beside each other on the bed, in nearly identical positions. I may have to call a penalty for excessive cuteness.
