2003-01-19 - 11:33 p.m.

It Begins

This is what I am made for, sweet, sweet leisure.  I am on vacation now.  Every few minutes I remember that I don't have to go to work tomorrow and I become giddy.  Today I woke up late in the morning.  I talked to my mother on the phone for a few minutes.  She has been very busy working for the past few weeks.  I don't think I will be visiting her on my vacation.  She is planning to go to South Carolina for my niece Jennifer's birthday in two weeks.  My sister and I will go with her. We will go Saturday and come back on Sunday.  Jennifer will be 20 on February 3.  Unbelievable.

I did not leave the house today.  I watched The Bat on deeveedee.  It is a crappy film starring Vincent Price and Agnes Morehead.  I only have it because I have the one sheet for it. A one sheet is a movie poster.  The one sheet for The Bat is beautiful.  I have it framed.  There is a warning on it that says "WARNING!  Keep the Secret!  Anyone who reveals who I am will have to answer to  The Bat."

One of the actors in the film is a woman named Darla Hood who, as a child, appeared in the Our Gang comedies in the 1930's.  She was the object of affection for Alfalfa Switzer who I saw in another film the other day.  It was Pat And Mike, with Spencer Tracey and Katherine Hepburn.  He played a busboy in one scene.

Ok.  I was born in 1964, so by 1968 or 1969 I was cognizant of television and tv shows.  The Little Rascals, Keystone Cops, Laurel and Hardy and other short films from the 20's and 30's were being repackages and used as inexpensive television shows.  Mostly early morning stuff for the kids before school started.  So I was very familiar with these actors by the time I was 5 years old.  They made me laugh.  They made all of us laugh.  But a lot of those people were already dead by the time I was 10.  Seeing them in other films as they got older, films in the 1950's, is sort of startling.

I think about that some time.  Especially when I see a silent film.  There it is, captured for eternity, a moment that passed 90 years ago.  The actors aged.  The sets and props have dissolved into dust.  The writers and grips did the job, got the cash, spent the cash and went on with their lives.  And we can view that moment.  The effort they put into it.

I think about it when I see a tv show from the 1970's, too.  Like The Tonight Show.  There's Johnny wearing his plaid jacket with the wide lapels, smoking and talking to people.  It was supposed to show that night and then again in reruns.  Who thought that we would see it 40 or 50 years later?  Did they think about that?  Probably not.

Anyway, back to me.  Today I also watched a few episodes of Mr. Show with Bob and Dave.  I watched a film on TMC called A Portrait of Jenny.  I have never seen this film before.  The title sounds like a made for tv movie but it is actually a melodrama from 1948 about an artist who falls in love with an apparition.  The film is in black and white but there are a few minutes of the film near the end where the film has been tinted.  And then the very end is in color, inexplicably.

Yesterday I hung out at the house. Then I went to the pet store to price a kennel. I bought a grooming glove to use on Petey.  I went looking for cds and I stopped at a local furniture store to see if I can find a good deal on a chest of drawers.  I didn't.  Most furniture made these days just looks ugly and cheap. But it ain't cheap.  For the same price or less I can buy an antique that looks better and is better built.  The problem with that is you have to just run across a good deal.

We'll see. Right now I am using the chest of drawers I have had since I was a child.  I don't know where it came from.  I think my mother got it when she got a suite of bedroom furniture from my brother when he was a baby.  It is fine.  But it is a beat up, dark plain thing that after 38 years I am tired of looking at.  If I can find something better I like then I will get it.

On Friday I went to work.  My new boss thanked me for staying late and working on a spreadsheet for one of our clients.  I think he has noticed that when he comes into our office I am usually the only one working.  More than once he has come in to find everyone standing around talking while I am on the phone.

Will that make a difference?  Probably not.

I did get a lot of work done on Friday.  The day moved pretty quickly.  When I got home I was very, very tired.  I have been looking forward to this for a while so I am just wallowing in the freedom.  But I have a lot of things I want to get done this week, too.  Things that I let drift.  Like looking for a new job.  Now is the time to start on that.

Yeah.

Jimmy
 

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