Revelations on a relatively cool day in August:
I'm really thinking deep thoughts, I promise, but I'm sick of them and they are getting on my last nerve. Therefore, a collection of random musings feels good right about now.
Here is Mr. Tomato Head. 
He is a ridiculous tomato that my Uncle Paul gave to my mother on Sunday at our family reunion at the house by the bay, a.k.a. Swampland. We were all so sick from the heat, sitting outside barely able to keep our heads up, eating a "refreshing meal" of fried chicken, beef barbecue and ribs. Oh. my. God. It was possibly the hottest day I've ever spent outside in my life history. I don't recall ever feeling like that before. But Mr. Tomato Head was a highlight. He had a little knob that you can't really see in this photo. Hilarious. The great misshapen tomato of 2005. He tasted good, though. My parents are obsessed with tomatoes. It's kind of frightening me, but I'm trying to roll with it, since I'm all about harmless things that make people happy. They can be few and far between, it seems.
Elvis died on this date in 1977. I didn't see it on any news. But I bet that won't be the case two years from now. Just....oooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh......lovely he was. 
Did anyone know that the pc term is no longer "impersonator"? Indeed, my friends, it's "tribute artist". Get it right. i.e., the Trippin' Billies. Who used to to be Tripping, if I'm not mistaken. Damn those lawsuits.
Gmail sucks (it's almost midnight, and my e-mails from late last night through about an hour ago are just now rolling sporadically in...) but I still love Google with an everlasting love - Image Search in particular.
Madonna fell from horse, broke bones. For God's sake, why is this still one of the major headlines? She is apparently fine. Although, on a day when Rena Sofer (who?) having a baby was a major headline on people.com, it's really not surprising. Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey must not be getting into any fights outside of LA clubs this week.
I really don't like aerobics instructors who scream at me such that I flinch. I just got screamed at silently all day, lady. You have a microphone. Chill, please. I have hidden your keys. Chill.
Tommy Lee went back to college on tv tonight. I didn't watch the show, which means I still have some standards, apparently. I'm not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. His gpa is probably higher than mine was freshman year.
After a talk with my friend Kim today, my love for Iyanla Vanzant is unabated. I know, it's so embarrassing. But that book "In the Meantime" really helped me. And Kim's reference to the "quiet time"...yeah, that's what it is. Dammit.
I'm excited for fall. New starts, new ideas, new places, new faces. Bring it ON. I am so over my hamster wheel right now, because that's what it ALL IS.
Homemade soup is so good. I'm going to eat at Soup's On all the time from now on! Gypsy soup...veggies, garbanzos, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, a touch of cinnamon. Abbondanza. Heaven help me. So incredibly good. I interviewed this lady a couple years ago for the magazine, and just started going back in for lunch. There's so little "real food" near my office, it's amazing to me that the lines aren't out the door. And it works with the blessed Weight Watchers, which must work this time...Why must being healthy be such an effort? Actually, I'm inspired to try to make some soup myself this fall. It can't be that hard to invent different kinds. Fun, maybe. We'll see. Bust out the bread machine again and get cookin'. So many cool things to do, such limited time.
I have a new e-mail address associated with the domain name I bought a year or so ago. I'm really excited. I keep checking it over and over even though I know there won't be any new mail yet, because it's a step in the right direction, and it's MINE. : ) It's the first thing I've been excited about all month. Now I just need to build a site. Aiyiyi.
I wouldn't mind going to Hunter Thompson's memorial bash. Wow.
And speaking of Johnny Depp, I did not love Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I didn't. I tried to. I wanted to. But I didn't. 
Parts of it were incredible. Parts of it were just Tim Burton jacking off (sorry) unnecessarily. I thought the Violet Beauregard character, and her hellatious mother, were woefully miscast. The opening sequence when Wonka comes out of the factory (burning puppets, anyone?) was anti-climacting. The boat ride was only so-so.
But I still cried real tears like the little girl I am when the sweet, sweet Charlie (Freddie Hightower is a great actor) found the freaking golden ticket. There are so few moments, on film or certainly in real life, of such unadulterated joy, and there is really nothing that I find more moving. I was thinking about how if I had a child, I'd be so happy for them if they got such an amazing prize (particularly if my teeth were all messed up like Helena Bonham Carter's in this joint, and I had to make cabbage soup for all four grandparents and my kid and husband every night...That'll wear on a girl. But I digress.), and how much it means, at that age, to get something you really want, so badly, especially when you don't think in a million years that you'll get it. It's the crux of the film, for me, more than and beyond the whole "Wonka's gone loony and wants to leave you his factory" surprise bit at the end, because for Charlie (who I believe is one of the great heroic idealists of American film, I kid you not. And I'm not exaggerating. Call me a geek. Go ahead.) the prize was the ticket. The prize was the trip, the opportunity to get out of his shitty life for a day and taste some magic. He's like Wilbur in Charlotte's Web when Charlotte writes "HUMBLE" about him in her web. It's true. He doesn't...expect anything more. And when it happens, he still doesn't quite believe that it's all for him, but not in a low-self-esteem, "ohnonotmethatcouldn'tpossiblybeforme" kinda way. At the risk of sounding ponderous, I think it's a profound message. So that part was totally worth it in the new version also. But overall, this wacky group still has my chocolate-covered heart. 
At happy hour on Friday, one of the girls said she'd never seen Willy Wonka, along with a couple other seminal works of American film, which must not have been that good, because I can't remember them right now, and we were all going, "YOU CAN BORROW MY COPY. YOU HAVE TO." But we had all seen "Grease", so there was the common ground. Scary.
"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dreams," Willy Wonka
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