Chloe Does Yale

Bolero. No kidding.

Don't ask. I'll tell you later.
Tennis redemption.

Or, anything from my wish list.

Aftermath
A new laptop, a new iPod, Russia, "The Interpreter", "The Namesake" and several much deserved thank-you's.

Firstly, if you didn't read yesterday's entry then this all makes very little sense, so catch up.

So, like always when you get broken into, you start to put the pieces back together and in some ways realize it could have been much, much worse. It turns out that while much of my favorite jewelry is gone, the amber bracelet and the SF necklaces were in my purse still from my trip to PA. It turns out that while I did have to buy a new laptop, the boy at the Apple store felt so badly for me (and my half-top and mini skirt) that he managed to come up with every possible discount imaginable and I replaced my iBook and my iPod for well less (well, well less) than I should have spent. It turns out that in the absense of noise I will be okay with silence. For a while.

It also turns out that I have the most amazing friends in the world. Do you believe in providence? I may have spelled that the wrong way, possibly, but you know what I mean. I'd been struggling for the last week or so with some negative feelings on the state of the world, of people. And, as I think we all know, the break-in didn't help. But then my friends stepped in, and I remembered that the world is a good place, and I remembered why you give yourself to people. It's because you will often find people who will give back more. Let's be sappy for a moment while I give some thank-yous.

K-Rock: Thanks for saying I can store stuff at your house. That whole situation is strange and getting worked out, but as soon as it is, I'll be taking you up.

G-Man: Thank you for offering to put your iBook out on the street, hide around the corner and just kick the shit out of the first people who tried to take it on principle. I think if you're going to do that, though, let's just wait until my visit this fall.

Matt: Thank you, well, you know what you did. And thank you for replacing my Sportsnight dvds. I'm not kidding when I say that I cried when you did that. Because I think that there aren't that many people who would understand my need for Casey and Dan.

Jen: Thanks. Sometimes I don't feel like that's who I am until I get reminded.

Slappy: Thanks for knowing to ask about the Boos. You're probably the only person who can understand the way I felt when I was standing there in the middle of the room just yelling at the top of my lungs "YOU MUST BE FUCKING SHITTING ME. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN AGAIN?" Really, probably only you can imagine.

Anyway...I'm moving on. My new iPod is actually an upgrade, so at least I net something here. I'm even managing to not be too gripey about having to put in over 30 hours of totally non-billable work to recover everything I lost with the laptop.

Russia
So, I think I'm going to go over for Jen and Ivan's "registration" (How Russian is that, by the way? Wedding is "registration"). It's not the most ideal time, what with just having dropped all that cash replacing my stuff, K-Yo's wedding being this month, having a three-day work trip to Vancouver. But how can I not be there for this? Plus, you know, I've never been to Russia. I can get almost $500 on eBay for my signed Peyton Manning jersey (unless you want to make an offer). That actually covers a big chunk of that cost. Yeah. I'm gonna do it.

The Interpreter
I'm, like, the last person in the country to see this movie, but I finally did. I came out of it wondering why I didn't like it more. I mean, don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it very much. But I was confused, because:

• I loved Nicole Kidman's performance. I think it may just be the first time ever I've referred to a performance by her as "nice and subtle," though in the end she throws away the entire first half of her character to become somebody totally different with no connection to who she is in the first half of the film. And I enjoy Nicole Kidman. I'm of the variety of women who love Moulin Rouge. But I've never come out of one of her performances before and said, "Wow, I thought that was a lovely, subdued performance." But this was, and also I don't think she's ever looked so beautiful.
• I heart Sean Penn. His character in this movie? Completely underdeveloped. Him as an actor? Totally underutilized. But every moment that he was on screen, I was mesmerized. I can't spell today.
• The production designer on this film? AMAZING. The colors that things that were clearly painted for this film were painted? Stunning on film. They actually seemingly painted Nicole Kidman's character's apartment a color that would make her look even more ravishing when she was in it. Every prop was perfect. Every interior perfect.
• The story...compelling.
• The writing? Well above average. In fact, Nicole Kidman has several monologues that actresses should be jealous about.

But I came out, you know, not blown away. First I thought it was because, man, Sidney Pollack can stretch out a scene like nobody's business. Said the Cute Boy, "But in an MTV attention span kind of age, isn't that refreshing?" Said I, "It's refreshing to not have every moment of a movie shot at the speed of light, but that doesn't mean we need to have six minutes of film of a person walking down a hallway. Seriously." What it came down to though was that while there were so many individually good components of that movie, it didn't all fit together entirely well. Characters were consistently left underdeveloped and changed direction a little too abruptly. Perhaps too many simultaneous lines of intrigue. Something...just...not..quite....all...there. But see it, if for no other reason than this line, "Vengence is a lazy form of grief."

The Namesake
So I finally finished this. It's lovely, but not in any way as good as "The Interpreter of Maladies." As many people know, I'm a sucker for cultural transitional stories. She is so brilliant at the precision of details in her writing while also avoiding the sometimes clinical feel that can come from doing that in overkill. Yes, you should read it. She's worthy of her Pulizter and while the short story collection was definitively better, this novel works.

So, that's that. Today I spent almost two hours trying to describe the need for an A/B split test on an email list to determine the impact of moving headlines from one position to the next. Don't you wish you had my life? Joking. Despite the fact that I've been a little mopey on here for a few days, I love my life. It's a good life and a happy life and a healthy life. Even the 30 hours of totally non-billable work!