What we talk about when we talk about art

I turn off a lot. This weekend, I was cat-sitting for Kelley and I had made great plans, but I unintentionally left my phone at home and rather than going to get it, I turned myself off. I pet the cat. I slept in the most comfortable bed in the world. I watched a lame teen movie.
I read Raymond Carver.

I shouldn't read Carver he makes failure and miscommunication and angst swim in my head, but I can't take my eyes off the page. I was reading a story about a couple whose marriage is disintigrating and in a pivotal scene, their cat enters with a dead bird in its mouth. It seems heavy-handed when I write it down--like if I had written the story it would have been a dead dove or lovebird or something. With Carver, though, you feel the couple's hearts breaking and it is simultaneously balanced with their newfound detachment.

I took that detachment and have run with it--all the way until today. I'll probably hold onto it through tomorrow. Friday night I have an obligation, but for whatever reason, I don't want to go. I don't want to see anyone. I don't want to talk to anyone. Thank you, Raymond Carver.

Oh, like I said, my first theater review is up on Seattlest.

Writing for them is strange. They want quantity out of us. Length of post doesn't really matter. I never get feedback from the editor--and people rarely comment, so I never even know if what I'm writing is coherent.

So 30 is looming. I think that has a lot to do with all of the unsettlement or dissettleness or unquietude or disquietment I feel. I mean, aren't I supposed to have equity by now? How much further behind the curve am I from an average 30 year-old? Is anyone actually going to come to Peru with me? At one point, the count was 9, but now the numbers are dwindling. I know, age ain't nothin' but a number, and you're only as old as you think you are and all that stuff, but I feel like I should feel older. So I'm growing my beard again.

Oh, and for all you Battlestar Galactica fans--here's an artist mimicking Matt Groening doing character interpretations from the show. Absolutely brilliant. [via Jimbo.info]