a list to start the week off.

1. first and foremost, if you're on facebook and not my FAN yet, get on it: click! and, if you would, repost the link. let's get me famous! or, y'know, paid.

2. assuming i actually go through with it, katie and i will be getting matching care bears heart tattoos on our asses this week. the backstory here is that, during a conversation about silly tattoos we've always wanted, we both separately had a desire at some point to get this particular tattoo. the opportunity has presented itself, and now that it has, i'm second-guessing myself. we shall see. if i do it, expect to see some pictures of my ass up on this blog.

3. we finally got around to seeing two movies we'd both been dying to see (because we read and loved the books): julie & julia and the time traveler's wife. they both pissed us off, but the latter was an absolute abomination, especially given the amazing job they did casting the two main characters. they both left major characters out and ended up being very two-dimensional. the incorporation of the julia child storyline into J&J was really cool. i think i need to stop seeing movie adaptations of books i've loved, because i really expect a literal translation. i think that, as a director or screenwriter, if you're going to adapt a piece of writing, you have a responsibility to stick to it, unless you state very clearly that your adaptation is more loosely based. don't lure people into the theater expecting one thing and getting a whole new animal. the new ending to the time traveler's wife really pissed me off. that's not the way it went. it's just not, god dammit.

4. reading the badly written biography of diane arbus (dear patricia bosworth: you suck.) and realizing that even the greatest of artists really had to struggle with their identities as artists. seems like it took arbus years to really get her focus and process down, and then she went and offed herself. mostly, i think i'm on the right path: i practice a lot. i could practice more, but at least it's not the same as it was when all i wanted in life was to be a writer. there was a lot of reading and a lot of talking, but not enough writing. in addition to practicing, i really need to school myself in the history of photography, but i guess that comes with time.

5. several paid gigs have made themselves available to me in the past week. nothing too crazy, but it's encouraging. supposed to be doing a shoot with rachel fine this week for what will double as her cd release party and a gallery show, which may ultimately also make stops in LA and austin. i'm terrified because i have little experience being authoritative and directorial, but i need to stop running from that shit and just do it. so i will. hopefully, the results are good.