A post like so many I feel I've written before: Took my short stories that I started writing upon coming to college and that I think I'm finished with and put them into one file, for a theoretical book, called Youth And How To Waste It. It was really satisfying to do this, and look over that stuff, this weird little overview of my mind for basically two years and the reflections I had, the veiled autobio, etc. I wish I could format it in Wordpad so the couple of stories that I saved doublespaced could be single-spaced like the rest, but mostly I've got something printable. Not really publishable by other people, but if I were to take a bookmaking class and make a chapbook or something, I'd have a fine little document- The stories are put into a particular order, and it starts off awkward and gets stronger, and I think by the end there's enough that's happened for an affecting payoff. It's weird and all over the place but it's a portrait of my head from a variety of angles.

Movies watched recently, a brief rundown: I saw Sideways, which I thought was overrated- my least favorite Alexander Payne movie yet. I'm thinking my favorite is About Schmidt, perhaps? That's got some moments that aren't so awesome, but it actually feels like a movie to me, and there's that strong (although weird and abrupt) ending. Sideways felt like TV to me, never as funny or as tragic as it should've been. The happy ending felt false.

Speaking of About Schmidt, I saw Broken Flowers, which felt like a companion piece to that film, coming at similar subject matter from a different angle. It seemed like most critics and everybody else was disappointed- to me it felt very Jim Jarmusch directing a late-period Bill Murray movie- deadpan and minimal but not annoyingly so. It wasn't as funny as such a thing could maybe be expected to be, but it was cool- The bits where Murray listens to music in his car are similar to bits in Ghost Dog, and yeah, a lot like About Schmidt- old people roadtrip movies, reconciling with their pasts.

Saw Kim Ki-Duk's Bad Guy, following my becoming obsessed with him after seeing 3-Iron at the festival. I was confused by the plot's movement, character motivations, etc. but I liked it- I had low expectations, or maybe just weird ones- I expected crazy violence and shock tactics. I also saw Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... And Spring, which I don't know if I talked about here- I liked the first segment, which raised my expectations a lot. Also I knew a lot of the plot beats ahead of time, so that kind of detracted.

Um, I saw The Warriors. Once Upon A Time In Mexico. Mirrormask. Belle De Jour. I watch a lot of movies. You all know how I live- Like Bruce Springsteen once sang, something something sitting here trying to write this book.

I bought my brother the R. Crumb Handbook for Christmas, and hope he'll like it. No idea what to get my mom but I am very poor, too poor even to really get something for my brother so maybe shit'll be excused.

I finished Libra- my DeLillo affair is kind of done, I think. Underworld is really well-written though. I'm reading this McSweeney's best-of, and I'll be finished that soon enough.

Mostly everything is the same as it ever was and is, soon this year will be over and maybe 2006 will be different. Mid-term elections to look forward to, and with such things come hope, I guess. Maybe jobs, financial aid, classes that don't suck, maybe making a movie, maybe making music, all those things I am always waiting to happen, maybe those will finally happen.

Sadly I'm pretty sure those Yo La Tengo Hanukkah shows I was looking forward to are 21-up. Seriously kids, 2006. Perhaps that will be our year.