Friday, April 28, 2006 Tonight, I arranged the tail end of my run so that I could pop by the 7-11 and pick up some dinner a Luna bar and some diet Coke. Since my running pants don't have pockets, I walked out the door with some change in hand, and walked up to the nearest panhandler -- a young guy, scrawny. "Are you looking for change?" I asked, and he stood up too quickly, introduced himself as Dan. I handed him the slim coins and smiled. And that's how I got a "God bless you" for seven cents. | permalink Thursday, April 27, 2006 How to take your mind off things Jam too many things into your mind. I procrastinated something I shouldn't have. You know if you say procrastinate the right way in your brain, you can make it sound like the Dalek battle call? "PRO-CRAST-IN-ATE! PRO-CRAST-IN-ATE!" (Which is to say that in my copious spare time, I am occasionally watching Doctor Who and always loving it.) Anyways, went to a well-executed screenplay reading last night, but one that went on about an hour longer than anticipated. And so I had to bail out of dinner at the last second and go home and fall asleep working on the project that I'm procrastinating. So now the next two days (until exactly 9:30 PM PST Friday, to be exact) are now jam-packed with this thing and all the other stuff that needs to get done before I leave for New York. Which is EXCITING, I am trying to be EXCITED, and I will be. Just as soon as I finish everything. I don't need a vacation yet. But it seems like I will by the time I'm through. | permalink Tuesday, April 25, 2006 Shorn I'm sure a much more talented writer than I would be able to make something of the fact that my hair just keeps getting shorter and shorter; a much more talented writer, or someone with more distance on the situation, I suppose. "Look at you," said the guy at Rudy's, handing me a mirror so I could see the back. "Kinda 80s back here, but then at the front, it's like when Keira Knightley cut her hair for that movie, you know?" I knew. I knew that my hair was now an 80s bounty hunter movie. But an 80s bounty hunter movie that is very easy to wash and dry. And I do love not having much hair on the back of my neck. I feel freer. Which is a nice thing to feel. Last night I nearly did a headstand in yoga; my shoulders finally figured out how to lock into position, lift my body up. It lasted for only a second, but I couldn't help a little squeal. The sense of being strong. Sometimes, I think strength can come, in part, from shedding that which weighs you down. Worries, insecurities, bad friendships. Strength can be walking away. Strength can be saying goodbye. Strength can be found in being shorn... Oh, you guys just want to talk about TV, don't you? FINE. Geeze. | permalink Friday, April 21, 2006 Friday night! Everyone go kick it Bonobo style! I mean, my plans for tonight are a run, a haircut, five pages of script, and maybe last week's Bones. But that doesn't mean the rest of you can't go have crazy monkey sex! Right? | permalink The joys of editor-in-chief-ing So I realized yesterday that we don't have a TV on DVD piece set up for Monday's issue. Which is fine, because I haven't written anything for the site in a while and I have some things to say about The West Wing, specifically one Leo McGarry and poor tributes indeed. Very apropos. And not too tough. Really, I can write a review of West Wing Season 1 in my sleep... Which might actually be necessary, the way this weekend is shaping up. | permalink Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Listening In So my methods of procrastination here at Day Job are vast and many; when you've got an unsupervised Internet connection and no real responsibility, the world's your oyster. But my current hobby of preference is one that I started up fairly reluctantly; it's not that I WANT to listen in on my fellow cube rats as they gab on the phone, but they're not exactly quiet and even my poor hearing is hostage to their choice of volume. Thus, I sit and I listen. You might not think that listening to two different women talk endlessly to their friends, loved ones, and etceteras would be terribly interesting, but I've gotten kind of addicted. Those damn voyeuristic tendencies of mine. And it's kind of fun to put together portraits of these people based on these phone conversations. Right now, I know the most about my closest neighbor, the one with the annoying cell phone ring. A consultant brought in to help with some budgeting stuff, she's French-Canadian, owns a house in Maryland but is taking this three-month assignment to figure out if she wants to move back to LA, close with her parents, Jewish, speaks some bare-bones French but always slides back to English a few minutes into a conversation, single and a bit in love with Michael Vartan. She fell while ice skating back in Maryland, and tore her rotator cuff; she's in physical therapy until she has time to go into surgery, which is the preferred treatment for "a woman of her age." Her voice is rich and low, the kind belongs to a '40s screen actress, face framed with that flattering halo of cigarette smoke; when I see her on my way to the bathroom, I never recognize her right away. Because she's no Bette Davis; she's short, bland face, a little heavy but settled into it. Comfortable. The sort of woman who's figured out her life, figured out where she's going, what she needs to know now, what she can leave for later. Not exactly happy, but not exactly sad, either. Content, and resigned, and maybe just a little relieved to be able to stop dreaming the foolish dreams of youth... ...And all while doing shit like REVEALING THE MAJOR PLOT TWISTS OF THE ALIAS SERIES FINALE WHILE I SIT RIGHT NEXT DOOR. Bitch. | permalink Tuesday, April 18, 2006 A new Liz Tells Frank What Happened on BONES! Complete with crap header! (Don't worry, should be fixed soon.) | permalink How to beat the blues It's simple. Just realize how many things have to get done before you can direct a short film in June! So much planning! So many distractions! This is how all great art is created, I imagine. | permalink A bunch of things that are not true, but if it makes you feel better to think that they are, then you go right the hell ahead. Everything's great! Really! I am getting a year older in a week and a half, and I'm handling this well! There is absolutely no freak-out over ever-encroaching mortality or depression over wasting my days with stupid day jobs and bad television! I'm going to be a quarter of a century old! I'm officially no longer a young woman! That's awesome! Writing is great! I have lots of time for it and the work I'm producing is smooth and solid. There are perfectly good reasons for why I'm behind on other things, and, professionally, there are tons of opportunities available to me right now. I'm just days away from making it big! I'm reading so much right now! So many books! I devour knowledge with every breath. True enlightenment is only days away. I seriously cannot keep up! I need more books! More books, please! I'm totally ready for this 5k that I'm supposed to run in less than a month! I am able to run 5k without feeling the cold hand of Death gripping my heart and lungs! This is because I haven't slacked off at all, and have been eating and sleeping well enough to keep up with an intensive training schedule! Yes! My love life! Man oh man, I just can't keep the fellows away! Seriously, boys, calm yourselves! And no more expensive presents! My love is not for sale. Like I said: Everything is great! Which is why it's pretty lucky, how I don't feel at all ridiculous complaining about what is, in theory, a pretty good life. Because here are some things that are true: I have my health, a small smidgen of talent, my family, my friends, and a tiny little tax return coming my way, bringing with it all the unexpected joy of an agnostic's Christmas miracle. If I can't find happiness with any of these things, then with what? | permalink Sunday, April 16, 2006 Poetry! Of Stephen Burt's three poems here, the second one is of special note. | permalink Friday, April 14, 2006 Where's Liz? You know, when I was flipping through pictures of people at APE, I didn't actually expect to find one with me in the background. It's the goth tie picture, taken in front of the Team Atrox booth. Go Team Atrox! They had a great showing. As did Erika Moen. Who is ridiculously nice. Check out her art, why don't you? Punks. | permalink Wednesday, April 12, 2006 So, for the record, the only thing that keeps this DVD set of Star Trek time-travel episodes from being THE GREATEST THING IN EXISTANCE is the lack of the DS9 episode "Children of Time," which is THE GREATEST EPISODE OF STAR TREK EVER. That aside, this collection looks fantastic -- a weird reminder of how much I like both Star Trek and well-executed time travel episodes. "City on the Edge of Forever," "Cause and Effect," "All Good Things...", "Trials and Tribble-ations"... Oh, such joy. I can even tolerate those four hours of Voyager. I'm a forgiving sort. | permalink YAY! My long-time favorite TV critic, Tim Goodman, has finally started his own blog. This is truly happy news, indeed. I recommend you all check it out. Just don't lie to him like he's a talk show host. I hear he hates that. | permalink So my Chicago pictures from last summer are up on Flickr. They're not particularly good photography-wise, but they're all right tourist-y-wise, I suppose. I'm bored at work. Shocker, I know. | permalink Friday, April 07, 2006 California Vegetable Cup o' Noodles: The poor girl's facial treatment. Mmm, steam. Mmmm, MSG. | permalink Liz Tells Frank What Happened on BONES now has its own temporary blog, because Annie wants to link to it in her next SMRT-TV column and until I move the blog to Moveable Type and start using tags and cry all the time with happiness, this is the easiest solution. I'll probably fix it up more design-wise, at least to make it not look like the Blogger template. But hey, now you can link directly to these! And everyone wins. Especially since November's entries are new to anyone who wasn't on Begum when this whole thing started. So much new LTFWHOB for you to enjoy! | permalink Thursday, April 06, 2006 Liz Tells Frank What Happened on BONES Three Weeks Ago: "The Woman in the Tunnel" Dear Frank, Wow, it's been a few weeks, huh? And I'm like three episodes behind! Blame it on my infernal need to sleep, which has been kicking in every time I start watching an episode after 11 PM. Or, you know, blame it on BONES itself. After the cuteness explosion last time, the show has taken one big step back from adorable. And since BONES pretty much operates on exactly two levels -- cute or boring -- this is never good. So I'll make this short. There's this woman, see? In a tunnel. And she's dead, probably from falling into the tunnel from a great height. For it seems there are all these sewer tunnels below DC and they're inhabited by a strange population of what everyone refers to as "mole people." To me, mole people sound like the adorable protagonists of a Disney flick, but they're actually sad broken humans who are hiding from the world above and/or their Tragic Pasts. Deschanel feels right at home! Well, she feels right at home because she's an anthropologist and can be a robot study people objectively. But anyways. The dead lady was making a documentary on DC homeless living conditions, which is how everyone downstairs knew her, and the investigation brings Bones and Booth to interview this one mole person who was a friend of dead lady, a very sweet guy who's only a little crazy. And he has a very Tragic Past -- he was a Vietnam vet who had to sniper a pregnant lady with a grenade in one hand and a baby in the other. Booth empathizes, just a little too much, which leads Bones to ask exactly how many pregnant ladies he snipered when he was into snipering, and leads Booth to say "Don't ask me questions you don't want to hear the answers to." It's kind of hot, actually. Deschanel's lucky that Buffy wasn't around. (Or the BuffyBot, if Booth's interest in Bones is any sort of indicator of type.) Anyways, Mole Duder keeps talking about how dead lady was looking for something guarded by "a blonde lady with dead eyes," and Hot Not Asian gets assigned as a sketch artist, despite the fact that she's terrified of crazy people she's not dating. (According to her witty repartee, that is.) The blonde lady is not a lady, though, but a portrait of a lady that was buried with bunches of other national treasures beneath DC during the Civil War as part of some national treasure hiding program. I don't know. All I know is that the dead lady wasn't exploiting the mole people so she could make a documentary about their lives, but exploiting the mole people so she could find the treasure. Too bad those rock climbers she hired to help steal the treasure were all greedy and armed with climbing axes. Whoops! But it's cool, because Booth and Bones find them in the nick of time and Bones gets to point guns and kick butt. Which girlfriend cannot get ENOUGH of. So everyone's happy! Well, except for Mole Duder. And Booth. And Bones. And everyone else with a tragic past. So really, just Hot Not Asian is happy. But we take what we get, in this life. We take what we can get. Just ask Booth. But only if you're ready to know about all those pregnant women he killed. Love, Liz | permalink Wednesday, April 05, 2006 Fantastic! I really love the way Doctor Who says "Fantastic". Like it's another F-word entirely. But not quite. He's gleeful, you know. He's got so much glee. Anyways, life is a little silly right now. I have yet to figure out how I'm going to get any number of things done. And little coincidences keep popping up. Like, hey, the Revlon Breast Cancer 5k, for which I have already paid the registration fee, is the morning of the next Mayday competition. So I get to run the race and then immediately head to the rendezvous point and help pick the title. At some point, maybe I'll get a shower, but we'll see. At least Mayday is no longer the day after I return from New York, though. THAT was going to be a fun couple of days. Slow day at the office. You know, like all the others. So now, I shall rewrite pitch pages in case, while at APE this weekend, I meet any artists foolhardy enough to be interested in drawing a resurrected Aztec maiden who eats the still-beating hearts of men. Hey, are you gonna be at APE? Then you should come by The Atrox/Mastodon City table o' stuff. There will be awesome delights there, sold by some truly talented and conventionally attractive comic book nerds. I will also be there, but strictly as a tagalong. And let's be honest -- my talent is suspect. | permalink Tuesday, April 04, 2006 I've gained insight from the internet today. On all sorts of subjects! Specifically, Racism and History. | permalink blog • archives • photos • about • contact This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. All content © 2004.