Sunday

March 25, 2001

A wrong number (fax?) on line 2 at 5:30 am brings me out of a busy, enervating dream that I promptly can't remember.

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We stay inside all morning. I fool with my computer, write some e-mails. FFP practices doing stuff with Quark. We read the paper some and talk to a friend on the phone. I answer a long e-mail from someone I haven't heard from in a while with a longer note about what's going on with me. It feels cool, almost cold outside.

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Around noon I feel the need to get outside into the ever more beautiful day. It's not too cold but cool enough to wear a sweatshirt for a couple of hours outdoors. I start cleaning up weeds and trash and limbs in the Zen garden, moving out to the backyard. FFP joins me shortly and we pull weeds, trim and hack, and he plants a few things. I fell a little more bamboo. It feels good to be outside and accomplishing a little something. I tell Forrest that the bad news is there is always some more to do. "And that's the good news, too," he says. He gets me. He knew I was about to say that.

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When I think my back has had all the bending and stooping it will put up with, we give it up. Shower. Go shop for a few items for Oscar-watching snacks.

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A few people over for Oscar-watching. Which is good because we aren't all that interested in the Oscars! Gayle, our bookkeeper. Her friend (and ours), Joe. My parents. LG and Pam.

Gayle makes a salad Wolfgang Puck was going to serve at Oscar parties. She got it off the Internet.

I steam some little sausages. Gayle brought a cake, too. We have some drinks. I was going to make nachos with guacamole but everyone seems satisfied and I don't. I just make decaf coffee for some, fire the Capresso for others, joke about the awards.

We watch the happy bubbling winners and the disappointed losers. Ridley Scott was not pleased. He wanted the director thing, never mind best picture and Russell Crowe. Tom Hanks' son (I guess...kid sitting near him) gave him a hug when he lost and Tom hugged back with this slightly surprised and sweet look that he didn't expect to win and didn't mind. But then when Steve Martin accused him of kidnapping Russell Crowe he also acted a perfect 'uh-oh, busted!' look. He is an actor.

I was happy Marcia Gay Harden won for her supporting role in Pollock. That happened so early in the evening (best supporting actress was about the first 'real' award they threw us) that I almost forgot it by the end. She was so good and aged in years and the relationship well (as did Ed Harris who was brilliant in it). Oh, well...I only go to movies I think I'll like so usually I have only seen one of the films and think it's best!

Julia Roberts should just shut up. Or maybe spend one of her ten minutes on, um, the serious subject of the film.

And I just knew Bob Dylan would win while he was singing the song and they were panning around the audience after. And he did. And I'm glad. Lots of baby boomers in the academy? Wonder Boys was one of the few movies in contention I'd actually seen. But I didn't know it had that song in it and that Dylan wrote it. (OK, I think I watched Wonder Boys as a soporific one time in a hotel room. I find if I pay nine bucks or so for a movie, I instantly fall asleep.)

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