is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Greg the Bunny. Rousseau. Ferry or Eno? Martin Donovan. Marco's Bands.

Greg the Bunny. Rousseau. Ferry or Eno? Martin Donovan. Marco's Bands.

Ha. Well, you all know how successful I've been at writing everyday, keeping you (and by extension myself) posted on what I'm reading and thinking my way through. Turns out I've spent a fair amount of time reading the insides of my eyelids while sleeping, and I've passed a great deal of time thinking my way through the entire series of "Greg the Bunny" on DVD (with the help of Evany and Marco, who now are as convinced of the show's genius as I am). You could call it wasted time. But there is a way in which it really was a vacation. And I am happy I got it, even though I spent a bunch of it loathing myself because I should have been getting some real work done.

Oddly enough, this week I've gotten some real work done already even though I'm borderline sick, trying to stave off a serious cold but living with a mild one. I wake up with a terrible sore throat daily, but then some hot tea, cereal and a pepsi later that's OK and I'm left with a nagging fatigue, some stuffy-head-feeling, some chest coughing, and minor aches and pains accompanied by a fairly constant "do I have a fever?" question that, if I indulge it, always receives the answer, "NO." In the meantime I've slowly forced myself (FORCED myself) to work on my paper on why Rousseau is a precursor to Levinas and why anyone would care about that. And now the paper's almost done.

In the meantime I will not have written the two other papers I so optimistically thought I could write during my time here. Oh well. As Nietzsche says, the ideas don't come when we want them to, they come when they are ready.

I have had some good friend-on-friend time, too. Last Thursday night Evany and I went to see Million Dollar Baby. Damn. That movie is ROUGH. It stays with you for a long time after you see it. In fact it keeps you from sleeping, as Evany and I both discovered. I don't want to spoil the film in case you aim to see it, but let's just say if you think you know what kind of film it's going to be, you probably don't. It takes a major turn about 2/3 of the way through and then a precipitous drop leads you through some harrowing decisions and some really amazing and redemptive declarations of love (the kind that take place without saying "I love you."). It's worth seeing. If it works on you the way it worked on me, you'll feel slightly manipulated during the last part, then devastated for a day or two afterward, and then you'll realize that the film wasn't really manipulative, it was just honest and gritty in a way you don't expect a film to be, and then you'll think about what really happened, and then maybe you'll realize what one of the wonderfully profound and in the end optimistic messages of the film is. Maybe. I'm sure even Evany would tell a different story than I just did.

Right now I'm listening to some really old Roxy Music, and it's as good as it's always been. I've been stuck in a 70s art-rock rut lately. And, well, it's not a bad rut to be in, as ruts go. So here's a question for you: Brian Eno or Bryan Ferry? Which one do you sleep with, if you have to choose one, and it has to be right now as opposed to any earlier moment in history? Plus, the lights have to be on. Bryan Ferry is more handsome, Brian Eno wears better makeup. Ferry has a better singing voice, but Eno has a nice speaking voice? Which of those do you really want to hear in bed with the lights on? Which one is the more interesting musician? Person? And so on. I'll let you ponder that one on your own.

Speaking of which, when I was really drunk on champagne + rum punch + bourbon on New Year's Eve, I got a cute really straight guy who had taken too much vicodin to admit to me what member of the male gender he would make out with if he HAD to make out with a guy. His answer was PERFECT (for me): Martin Donovan, star of many Hal Hartley films and on the Top Ten List of people I have made friends refer to as "Jill's Boyfriend." (Note that the list would probably be a bit different if I had written it today instead of eight years ago. But I stand by my choices.) (Note also: I had meant to link to the top ten list that I am referring to here, but when I went to my own freaking h2so4 website, I couldn't find it. Richard, my very proficient webmaster is going to be laughing to himself very soon about all those times he tried to get me to commit to a form of site organization.)

Then, after I shared the love of Martin Donovan with a straight boy who wants to kiss Martin Donovan but NOT ME, not two days later, I got in the mail my holiday gift from my friend Amy and it included the Hartley film Surviving Desire on DVD, which features Martin Donovan yelling this, one of my favorite movie lines of all time: "YOU CAN'T COME IN HERE, USE MY TOASTER, AND START SPOUTING UNIVERSAL TRUTHS WITHOUT QUALIFICATION!"

And then!

Last Friday Evany and I went to see both of Marco's bands at a bar in NORTH BEACH. Can you believe it? North Beach! I felt like a cultural anthropologist. There were all these tall skinny girls there in a kind of undeclared uniform: tight low-cut jeans with wide belts, tight Tshirts, long blonde straight hair, high heels. One of them even had a Van Dutch trucker cap on. They all danced the SHIT out of the second band, Marco's more rocking bar-bandy kind of band.

I myself, as far as music goes, preferred the kind of quirky-smart-boy music of the other band he's in. But I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, all parts.

With regard to the gaggle of girls in undeclared costume, Ericka said to me: "I think they're all from Michigan." I replied, "Michigan is a state of mind." There was a pause while we listened to music and watched girls. Then Ericka said, "I think they're all in the same strip aerobics class." Ha. That was almost my favorite comment of the evening. Then Evany walked up, having narrowly escaped a guy who had been on her trail ever since she was kind enough to tell him that she didn't smoke, and she said, "What does a girl have to do to get date-raped in a place like this!!??" HA. That is my favorite quote of the MONTH.

7:35 p.m. - January 11, 2005

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