it'll take more than the big C to bring that man down

Tough Sunday. Unbeknownst to me, my Dad--who also happens to be the greatest man in the universe--was diagnosed with cancer on Friday. I got an email but not until after I left work and therefore remained blissfully ignorant of the news until yesterday when I called for my semi-regular call home. He's so positive and upbeat that it makes me determined adopt the same attitude though to be honest I've spent the past 24 hours being pretty pissed off at the world and leaking tears. The hardest part is being so far away. Hopefully it's isolated and hopefully he'll qualify for the least invasive surgery possible. Positive thoughts would be much appreciated.

So...yeah. Huh. Pre-Sunday life seems fairly unimportant now. Nancy's birthday party was nice and everyone was on their best behavior. Saturday night was supposed to be f-u-n but I wasn't feeling too up for much so it was a night on the couch with Office Space and Pee-Wee's Big Top and my hands full of knitting. I'm getting ever closer to having an actual sewing table downstairs and to guilt me into using it I've put my stash of fabric on some shelves. Post-Sunday news we actually went to GR and saw "I'm Not There" which we've been talking about for well over a year and stumbled on unexpectedly. The best part? We done saw it for a grand total of $7.00 for the both of us. The Woodland Mall Celebration Cinema is touting itself as an Art Theater. The Darjeeling Limited is playing there, the new Ang Lee movie is playing there, Lars and The Real Girl is playing there...All for $3.50/person all.the.time.

"I'm Not There"--for those of you normal people who haven't been following this film every step of the way--is a movie sort of kind of based on Bob Dylan's life. Only 6 different people sort of kind of play parts of Dylan during parts of his life. And none of their names are actually Dylan. And it takes place in overlapping completely different time periods. And some of the people playing Dylan aren't even singer/songwriters. I liked it. I think. It's definitely one of those movies you want to give yourself some time to absorb. Some of it was a little too artfilmedout for my tastes and the boomers really do get their fill of Vietnam footage and the Village in the 60s, but it was what it was and whatever Todd Haynes was going for I think he was successful. Cate Blanchett was really good though Peter did say no matter how good she was if you've seen the original Dylan footage you'll probably be underwhelmed. And David Cross didn't get nearly enough to do as Alan Ginsberg. My favorite moment? Jim James singing "Goin' to Acapulco."

We got the needle back. Now we just have to install the needle. Which, for some reason, seems to be giving us some trouble. Which is even more frustrating than having waited 6 weeks for the stupid thing to come in. And to top it all off Peter had the nerve to buy the new Bonnie Prince Billy LP. So it, along with the I'm Not There soundtrack, is just sitting there staring at us. Mocking us.

Sigh.