ink-stained fingers

I have always wanted to take beautiful pictures of snow at night and have never been able to. I tried last night but I don't think the pictures will turn out. I wanted to try more when I got home, but I was afraid the snow would damage my camera. I instinctively know that it's better to store such fragile beauty away as a memory, but once I learned that a photograph is a way of remembering that can literally be held in one's hands I've often been torn between mental images and images that float up like magic from a basin of developer. (And I love what Jennette said in her most recent entry about how taking a picture of a particularly nice moment would have ruined it.)

At least I did get to shoot a photography project today. I took some portraits of Shiva in her (not-so-sunny) sunroom. Hopefully they turned out. I used 100 speed film for minimum grain and I've never done that before.

It seems like every weekend is a really happy one now, full of happiness that is like a vitamin that can be stored for the amount of time it takes to get to the next weekend. As I reach Thursday burn-out I see that the end is in sight and before I know it I'm enjoying another Friday. I don't think it was always this way. But yesterday was really great, for instance. Carolyn, Saritha, and I almost got trapped in a fold-out bed. And I ate clam chowder. And the part of Shakespeare in Love in which the stutterer delivers his lines really eloquently at the beginning of "Romeo and Juliet" was almost as poignant on second viewing as it was the first, when I saw the movie years ago. The first time, I cried. Sure, the love story is touching, but only a fraction as moving as the tailor with the speech impediment becoming a great speaker for the small moment on stage.

This afternoon I went to the library to get lots of books to read Charlie and Tyler. I had so much fun wandering the children's section, peering down at the small shelves, searching for picture books I remember from my childhood as well as some new ones. I got Frog and Toad All Year (absolutely wonderful! I gave Toad an outlandish, not quite effeminate voice and as the boys laughed I remembered laughing at the same parts with this enormous jolt of excitement--I felt like a five-year-old and a mother all at once), Shel Silverstein's Who Wants a Cheap Hippopotamus?, Oliver and Amanda and the Big Snow, and a couple Nate the Greats.

I thought Saturday Night Live was really funny tonight, especially compared to weeks past. Some ridiculous part of me that thinks other people are constantly passing judgment on everything I do and say feels guilty that I haven't been watching since 1975. Having been born in 1985, there's really nothing I can do about this. Anyway, I thought Megan Mullally was great. I had never, ever heard Clay Aiken perform (at least not in my conscious memory) and the only part of his performance that stuck with me was the strange and obnoxious way he smiled at the audience after his numbers. I really wanted a "Wake Up Wakefield" sketch so Clay Aiken could actually appear on the show, maybe in some kind of dream sequence for Maya Rudolph's character. But even if the whole show had been a disaster, it would have been worth it to see Tina Fey gnawing on the enormous turkey from Oprah.

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I just talked to Sarah on the phone and found out that we won't be able to film our classical conditioning video for Psych. Her dad is out of town, so his dog Stella (whom we classically conditioned to associate dog biscuits and the sound of the vacuum--the effect of the experiment lasted all of five minutes) had to be boarded. We've already made posters and everything, so this isn't a big deal at all. It's so nice when going the extra mile (without any real desire to do so in the first place) becomes impossible. Now I have time to watch Carolyn's "Sabrina" DVD (Audrey Hepburn, Humprey Bogart, and William Holden, not the teenage witch) so I can return it to her tomorrow after a long loan period.

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I got some really disturbing "The Passion of the Christ" spam comments on the last entry. Disturbing as in, dripping with blood. I didn't delete them, though, mostly because I'm a little stunned and amazed. Spam comments are offensive in principle, regardless of their content, but I think I'm keeping these as a testament (no pun intended) to certain aspects of our culture. Ugh. I am a Christian and I still feel disturbed by the comments. So, this entry is both a warning and an explanation as to why those notes are there. I might delete them later, but something is stopping me for now.