(no subject)
Why is it that I feel way more stressed panicky about deadlines on a day when I've actually been really productive than on days when I've done nothing at all? I let myself get away with being really lazy, and then when I work hard it's never hard enough to stop the worrying. I'm weird.
I started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close tonight, because even though I wrote ten pages of the first of my 20-5 page papers of the semester today, which is more than the eight I'd planned and the five that was the absolute minimum due diligence, I felt like I needed to be responsible with the rest of my day, and as I couldn't make myself write anymore and really didn't want to wade back into Blood Meridian even though I have to have that read long before EL&IC, because it's the first book I've read in years that I just cannot enjoy on almost any level, I decided that reading Foer's book would be a way to be productive and do something I might actually like. And so far, I love it. It's a much faster read than I'd expected; it being so postmodern, I also expected it to be more ergodic, but it's really, really not. That's good for my workload, but also kind of a disappointment. I was hoping it'd be another House of Leaves, a book I loved so much that even after writing my Master's thesis on it, my desire to re-read it is sometimes so strong that I actually yearn for it pitifully. For what EL&IC is, though, it's fantastic.
I think I'd feel more accomplished if I didn't realize that what I have written for my paper gets away from the argument I wanted to make and simply reiterates an argument from one of my secondary sources. I'm pretty sure I know how to bring what I have back in line with my own original idea, though, and what I've written are necessary bricks of textual evidence that I can definitely use most of, even if it needs to be recontextualized, so I shouldn't worry. I have next weekend to write, too, and then technically it's not due until the following Saturday, although I can't use that week to work on it unless it's absolutely necessary, because I need to prepare for the second of my 20-5 pagers, which, unlike this one, which is going to go through a workshop stage, has to be ready to turn in for a grade at the end of two weeks of work. (I'm kind of excited about that one, though; I've never written for a film class before, and, assuming I get approval, I'm going to be writing about splatstick, with Dead Alive as my text. It makes up for not really getting a Halloween this year.)
Other stuff: I had to get a Tdap shot on Tuesday, and today is the first day that I've had the full range of motion back in that arm; this week's Community and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia were both among my favorite episodes ever of those shows (Community had the cat scare gag, a ton of awesome Jeff lines, Troy being awesome and hot and hilarious and totally in love with Abed, and the best costume gags ever, and IASIP had the ostrich gag, which made me laugh until I cried and thought I'd suffocate all four times I watched the episode); I definitely caught a cold this week and have been feeling like absolute shit all day, though not in a way that affected my writing, thank Jeebus; oh, and, I went to see Paranormal Activity 2 on Thursday.
I really liked it, but, then, I was one of the lucky few for whom the first movie worked exactly as advertised. Horror movies don't ever scare me anymore, or at least not the way that I want, where it stays with me when I try to go to sleep, so I was thrilled when PA actually freaked me out, both in watching it in the theater and that night when I went to bed. It hits the exact right buttons for me, horror-wise: supernatural horror in a realistic setting that develops into a tangible threat. The second one does the same, and even has some of the same specific types of scares, but it's different in a couple ways that I found frustrating at first and then brilliant after we were about half way in. It's not the neat, steady accellerando of the first, and it has fewer scares, but they're bigger, more elaborate, much more frightening ones that don't happen quite when the first movie conditions you to expect them. And it's a good follow-up to the first, as it makes it better instead of stupider, doesn't try to be the same movie, and doesn't lose sight of why the first one worked. It's pretty impressive, and if the first worked for you at all the second should work more or less as well.