All the lads they smile on me when comin' thro' the rye

Another Scottish reference! Damn, I really am obsessed. I also really am a mess. Looking like a ragamuffin, operating on little sleep, staying up late to watch movies and reading trashy romance novels. Things are getting a little out of hand. Two more nights and then a week away; I am determined to be totally unfettered.

I watched On a Clear Day last night. It was somewhat slight, but sweet. I really like Peter Mullan, and it's hard to believe that just 10 years ago, he was giving Ewan McGregor an intravenous injection of hard drugs. He's a lot younger than I realized - only 46 if IMDb is to be believed. (I also liked him in The Claim.) Brenda Blethyn was in this one too, and you can never go wrong with her.

Also recently watched:
Monster House - funny and surprisingly scary, but I am not a fan of the stop-motion animation
The Matador - funny and surprisingly good
North Country - too depressing
Little Miss Sunshine - loved it! loved it! loved it! That cute little Abigail Breslin was also the cute daughter in Signs (the water is contaminated) and she is also in a movie called Keane, which I haven't seen but have *almost* rented a few times. Toni Collette is in this one too, and you can never go wrong with her.

I have my screenwriting class tonight (did I mention I am taking a screenwriting class?). I still haven't come up with a story idea yet, and we're all supposed to "pitch" our ideas to each other tonight. Ugh. But the good news is we get to watch The Professional.

My logic

Is it true that the thing you are afraid of will always come to pass? It certainly feels true. I don't know how long ago it began, but I have an obsessive fear of bugs. Certainly it may have always been there, but my mother kept such a clean house that it wasn't ever a problem. But my neuroses have certainly worsened over the last several years, to the point that seeing an ant crawling on the dryer makes me worried that the whole load of laundry has been compromised. And now we have just experienced the third ant attack in a week. And this time they were in my bedroom - in my pile of clothes! It's one thing for them to be in the kitchen or the bathroom; you expect to see them there. But in my bedroom, where we rarely eat and never leave dishes, I never expected to see them there. How surprised (and grossed out) was I to discover that ants are just attracted to the sugar in the sweat of dirty clothes. Oh, I am shuddering just typing this! And now, is it unnatural for me to make the connection that God/karma/life is doing this to me on purpose because I am an easy target? OK, maybe a little unnatural. But I am sure you can understand my logic.

Specialized Mainstream Mahoney

I love random connections that don't have any meaning for anyone but me. A River Runs Through It is one of my favorite movies, not only because it has some people I like in it (Brenda Blethyn, Emily Lloyd, and a before-he-was-too-famous-for-his-britches Brad Pitt), but it is one of the two movies that made me fall in love with Montana. (The other is Lonesome Dove.) So there is this scene in the movie when Norman is trying to hit on Jessie at the 4th of July Party, and they are talking about the band, and Norman makes some kind of crack about the Clicquot Club Eskimos, and Jessie gives him a withering look and says, "My mother loves the Clicquot Club Eskimos!" Well for years and years I never knew if that was a real musical group or what. And then a couple of months ago while watching Northern Exposure, I noticed the poster hanging on the back of Dr. Joel's door: A Clicquot Club eskimo! What's this?! Well, of course I had to do some research, and it turned out that Clicquot Club was a company that produced ginger ale (and I guess other beverages), and the company was bought out by Canada Dry in 1965. "Clicquot" was the fictional name of the Eskimo boy that was pictured on the bottle and in the their advertising. And the Clicquot Club Eskimos were a jazz band that had weekly radio broadcasts during the 20s and 30s that were sponsored by Clicquot Club Beverages. Random!

And speaking of weird connections, I just found out that an acquaintace who recently moved back east now lives on a street called Barley Mow. Hello! That might not mean anything to anyone else, but it sure means a lot to me, who danced many a jig in my friend's living room, back in the day, while playing her parents' records. I can hear the Irish Rovers in my head now: "Here's good luck to the barley, good luck to the barley mow. Jolly good luck to the barley, good luck to the barley mow...." Oh man, we loved that one! And as usual, after looking it up on the internet, I discovered there are all kinds of things I didn't know about:

The Barley Mow pub in south Wales
and in Derbyshire
and in London
"Barley Mow" is a drinking song

And here's an explanation about the word nipperkin.

"It's the safest thing you'll ever have between your legs."*

Mini road trip to Monterey
Cheap breakfast and miniature golf in Santa Cruz. Sandwiches, sunshine, and sand while hanging out at the Pacific Grove tide pools. Gawking at (and commenting on) a wedding at the Carmel mission. Drinking cheap wine while "relaxing" in the motel room and playing the card game Casino. The Britannia Arms for dinner and pints. A quick obligatory stop at Cibo, where I could barely finish a glass of wine. A drunken stroll down the cobblestone (?) street, to end up stumbling into a classic motorcycle auction ("classic" being everything from a 1920s Indian with sidecar to a 1970s Datsun), which was an odd way to end the evening. And that was just Saturday.

I'm glad to have a break (even if temporary) from the heat. I want to say that the heat of the last couple of weeks was unbearable, but of course that can’t be true, because I did bear it and I am bearing it, so it must be bearable. But it is annoying and gross feeling like I can’t breathe and waking up to feel the sheets wet with sweat.

Recently Watched
Cars
Match Point
Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang
The Break-Up
The Devil Wears Prada

Read, Reading, Planning to Read
Peter and the Starcatchers; Peter and the Shadowthieves - the sequel to the Peter Pan prequel was just as good at the prequel.
A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly – thought it was really good despite the unresolved ending. I loved the fictional story with a real-life element woven in. Have been trying to read Gangs of New York, which is interesting enough for its old-timey-ness, but once you’ve read about one “worst gangster of New York,” you’ve read about them all.
Highland Fling by Katie Fford - just picked this off the shelf at the library. A bit of fluff to read on the bus.
Gangs of New York - I stared reading this a couple of weeks ago and am still only a fifth of the way through.
The Fountainhead - also checked this out from the library, promising myself I would read it for my dad, who bought me a copy a good fifteen years ago that I never read. It's a pie-crust promise though.


*Jonathan Silverman in Girls Just Want to Have Fun, 1985