The other Pillow Book, and also a nice email and other stuff

[la_belle_laide]

I decided to email the resident editor who chose my chapter for this month's workshop, and thank her. She's got a few books out and one of them looks really awesome, like something I'd just love, so I ordered it. Anyway, I told her how much she had helped me, and inspired me to get better. She wrote back and said that she had no doubt that if I kept plugging away, I'd get this baby published. She said she was pleased to have found such a good story.

INSERT MADLY HAPPY EXCLAMATION HERE.

Today I spent the day—yes, most of the day—trying to edit one lousy chapter to upload to the workshop. It took me a few hours. The rest of my time get 'et up by effing stupidass Tripod and their lame goddamn useless page editor. Three hours to make measly line edits using their stupid uploader.

And then I did my homework, too.

Last week I realized that I had never seen The Pillow Book in its entirety. I'd only ever seen bits and pieces of it back when I had movie channels, years ago. But never had I seen the whole thing. I mean, wtf, my two favorite things? The Pillow Book and Ewan McGregor naked? So I ordered it, and last night I finally sat down and watched it from beginning to end.

W.

T.

F.

No seriously, I mean, Ewan McGregor's penis aside, WTF even was this movie? Vivian Wu was awful, her voice sounded so stilted and forced. The sound blew, I had to ride the volume. And the translations were, I don't even know, like a bad fansub sometimes.

And then, Ewan McGregor's death scene and subsequently getting turned into a book, I mean, it didn't freak me out that much or anything, and I get the necessity of it, sure. But, it was just trippy and some parts of it were pointless and filmed in a really odd way. I hated the "this is also happening" insets, especially when the insets were depicting, like, the same exact goddamn thing that was on the regular screen except from a different view, or whatever.

At least 1/3 of the movie was comprised of Ewan McGregor's penis. I feel like I know it from every single angle. I seriously know what it looks like upside down, from behind, everything. Which is awesome, I'm glad I know what it looks like from every conceivable viewpoint, I won't deny that. I just feel like the movie had less to do with Sei Shonagon and the original Pillow Book than it had to do with Ewan McGregor's penis, Vivian Wu narrating in a dead voice, and some french chick wailing about banging an angel or something. (My French is a little rusty.)

Well. Speaking of hot guys in movies:

Just, YES, DO WANT and all of that. I'm sure bummed that T-Ho got ousted as Rhodes because I thought he was perfect for it. And I really, really, really don't want this movie to suck. I want to love it at least a little bit. At least a fraction of the amount I loved the first one. I know that's so rare with sequels, but I'm going to try really hard to love it.

By the way, I hate when people say "Sequelitis." Inflammation of the sequel? Really, your sequel is swollen? I also hate when people tag "-itis" onto the end of any word when they don't really mean -itis. Huge pet peeve of mine.

Do-dee-doo.

Last night I showed up at Kung Fu only to find the doors of the kwon locked. THANKS FOR TELLING ME, PEOPLE. I called the Dragon and left a message saying, "Don't know if you're aware—probably not—but school is closed." Then, Military Man showed up, and he's got a set of keys. (I keep neglecting to get mine. :/ ) I called the Dragon back and left another message saying, "Well, school is officially closed but we are opening the kwon. So, hope to see you."

We started warming up, and Dragon showed up all dressed up and looking fly, totally not having planned on coming to work out. He explained that he was at his brother's house, bringing a chocolate bunny to his beloved nephew. Then he proceeded to give Military Man and me an awesome private lesson in staff form. (I know staff pretty well, but every Spring I need to tweak it and fix the little problems that creep in over the winter.)

It didn't occur to me till later that he totally did not have to come down and help us. He knew school was closed (Sifu had called him – Dragon thought Sifu had called all of us,) and he was doing something else, but he totally came by anyway to teach us. That was pretty swell.

So, we had a great lesson outside in the parking lot.

And now I am done babbling about staffs of the Kung Fu nature and of the Ewan McGregor nature. I have tons of emails to answer, and still more homework, and some critiques to do. But instead, I'm going to: Do my homework in school tomorrow, answer emails tomorrow after school, and do critiques on my next day off, which is Friday. And I'm going to eat a Skinny Cow ice cream (which I shouldn't, because I've packed on a few pounds and a half,) and play a video game. Then watch an anime, have a glass of wine and, I don't know, go to bed or something.

Early day tomorrow.

Oh, also: Ewan McGregor's penis.