When I was young, Thanksgiving weekend was a big yard marker for me. It started the end of the year for me. I knew that year was coming to an end. I had a pretty good idea what the school year was going to be like. Thanksgiving is where I started to make my plan for the spring. I knew that the first third of the school year was done. It was usually downhill from Thanksgiving.
As an adult Thanksgiving does not mean the same thing. I am not working toward the next big summer vacation. My years seem to take on a whole different dimension. I lack this kind of structure. My years do not make sense in the same way. I miss that kind of structure that I had back in school.
I went to see The Man Who Wasn't There today. It is the latest Coen Brothers movie. I like the Coen Brothers, but I am not a devoted fan. Of their movies I like Fargo and Millers Crossing the most. Let that be a guide for the rest of my feeling on this movie.
There was something I saw in the preview for this movie. The trailer was cut with an intriguing series of images. It was the trailer and the Coen Brothers good name that made me want to see thing movie, nothing else. I wanted to see the images of this movie.
I really liked The Man Who Wasn't there. I cannot tell other people that this is a movie that they would like. There are moments in that movie that are just incredible. The movie it just amazing to look at. It is as visually interesting as any movie I have seen in a long time.
There are some problems with the story. The movie lays heavily on the narration provided by the protagonist. There are times in the movie when the story seems to be very thin. The story was boring at different parts during the movie. Sometimes they played things for laughs that did not need to be played for laughs. It was like they could not let us forget we were seeing a Coen Brothers movie.
My friends who like Coen Brothers movies will like The Man Who Wasn't There. I think it fits into what people like about the Coen Brothers. It was worth my money to see.
My friend Jeremy asked a group of us to come up with a list of a hundred things that we are thankful for. Going back to high school Jeremy started lists of 100 Favorite Things. It is something that we have been doing ever since.
Jeremy asked us to make a list of the 100 Things we are most thankful for. I see my Favorite things and my Thankful things to be two different lists. Jeremy does not see it that way. I do not want to be trivial about thinks that I am thankful for. I think there is a problem with people who thank God for ever little thing. I am seeing that the same way. The 100 Favorite Things list will have to come later.
Here is the list of things I am thankful for:
Family, My Job, Friends, worldwide communication, place to live, my mind, my health, sense of humor, the time I am living in, people that care about me, my comptuer, the people I work with, chances I have, my view of the world, my sense of the world, laughter, my car, Enjoying the company I work for, living in America, my background, the Bill of Rights, Coast to Coast air travel, My Parents, Being Missed by my friends, my life to this point,
I have been kind of depressed for a little while now. No matter what I tried, I was still down. A couple of the things that were getting me down had turned around. I could not figure out why I was still down. Today my cousin invited me to spend Thanksgiving with his family. I accepted and right away I was in a better mood. Where I had been dragging I intently just started to have a good time again.
I wonder if this was that one thing that was just keeping me down. I was hoping to get invited to a dinner by one of the people I work with. I was hoping to make this a social event. I figured out a couple of weeks ago that was not going to happen. Most of the people that I asked were going out of town. There was not much going on around here.
This might speak my lack of friendships in Silicon Valley. I really wanted to find some kind of orphans' Thanksgiving dinner to go to. I thought that one of my friends would have to having one. That was not the case. If I had more friends, would I have been invited somewhere? I do not know the answer to this question.
What I know is that I have somewhere to eat turkey tomorrow. That I am thankful for. I do not know what tomorrow will be like, but I know I will have a good time.
On Saturday night I had an odd dream. In the dream I was talking with a man I work with Stephen. Stephen was working on his laptop like he always does. We were talking about housing in the bay area. He told me that I was not looking had enough. If I looked hard enough I could find a condo for $150,000. He told me to search on the internet.
I know this does not sound like an odd dream. The odd thing is that two bedroom condos in San Jose start at $300,000. In the real world people would laugh at the idea I could find an Condo at 150K. The problem is that 150K is really the most that I could afford. The dream was odd because it was so normal. I usually do not have these kinds of plan conversations in dreams.
Today I looked on the internet for Condos. I did find Condos for 150K. The problem is those condos are 70 miles away from where I work. I decided a long time ago that I do not want to commute more then an hour to work every day. I do not want to anything more then an hour is adding too much extra time to my day. Even if I am not doing anything else with that time, I do not want to be in my car.
I think I know why I was having this dream. I am currently paying $900 a month rent for a studio apartment. I have recently had three conversations about people buying houses. I know that my money is not working for me by renting. I am getting to the age when I should think about buying a house. I know that I should work toward this goal.
The problem is that I am so unready to own a house. I am bad at the way I spend my money. I actually refer to myself as being in Drunken Sailor mode when it comes to spending money. I know nothing about how to buy a house. I know nothing about what kinds of things I would be responsible for. I have nowhere near the money it would take for a down payment.
Maybe I need to start to live my life like I want to own a home someday.
On Saturday night I watched the fight between Lennox Lewis and Hasim Rahman. There were two things that I realized watching this fight.
1. I know very little about boxing.
I consider myself to have a good level of knowledge about popular sports. I know a lot about sports like baseball and football. I can talk about techniques involved in Hockey and Basketball. I understand the strategy and nuance in auto racing and tennis. I understand the finer points about most popular sports played in America. With all that boxing is a total mystery to me.
Not many of my sports fans friends are boxing fans. The people who I talk sports with do not like boxing. There is this huge divide there. I am old enough to remember Mohammed Ali's last fights. He was not a great fighter when I saw him, but people still talked about him like he was the greatest of all time. As a boy I knew there was some magic there.
In High School it was the Heyday of Mike Tyson. He was the baddest man on the planet. He was a heavy weight champ that would just destroy people. People would talk about his fights, but they would not talk about boxing. He was the only person people were really interesting in. People loved to see Tyson fight, buy that was about all.
I watched these guys fight and I realize that I have a hard time telling who is winning. I could not tell if the fighters had a plan. I could not see the things that I usually like about sports. I could not see the athletes working a plan. They either look like they are tired or they are lazy. I do not see the science part of the Sweet Science.
2. $49.95 is a lot of money to pay to watch something on TV.
I watched the fight in a neighbors apartment. I did not pay to see the fight. We watched a couple of the fights before the main event. We did not pay much attention to the female boxers. You can call me sexist, but I do not enjoy watching female box. This is an idea for another time. The under card fights were okay, but they were nothing to get excited about. They are not as good fights as I have seen in the past.
We watched the fight. It ended in the 4th Round. The fight was not dramatic. They were no real mystery to it. From the time the fight started it seemed that Lewis was in control. Neither fighter was really making a show of it. I would have love to see Lewis beat Rahman into the mat. It would have been great to see Rahman frustrate Lewis. Neither of those thing happened. No matter how you cut it, it was not worth that much money.
I know why fights are $50 a pop. I know that most people have fight parties. They expect people to split the cost between them. Even with these facts it is a lot of money to watch something on television. Think about all the other ways you can spend $50 on entertainment, 3 CDs, 2 DVDs, Diner and a Movie for two (no popcorn), a month of digital cable. One fight does not seem worth the price. I think that boxing might find this out a little too late.
I have been feeling isolated and depressed for the last week. When I would sit down to write, I just started to feel worse. These are had feelings to deal with. I am trying to not be too destructive when I am depressed. I stay away from drinking and loud places. If I were smarter I would lock up my credit cards when I feel this way.
Right now I have nothing enlightening to say about feeling this way. I have not been able to write about it so I did not explore it. Maybe I can find something to write about it this week.
