— I’ve been a bit absent here. I miss it but I have been busy with other things, primarily a recovery process from my illness. That is going VERY well, and it’s amazing to me but I am doing much much better. It has required a lot of space and quiet. I am starting to get restless again, which is a good sign. My doctors have been great, and I feel supported. Like, there’s a PLAN. And I have to just keep up with the plan, and keep working the plan. It’s hard. It has required a total overhaul of what my life looks like, but I’m in a groove with it now. I thank all of the people who have helped me, family, friends, and professionals.
— I have been reading like a maniac! My new schedule involves reading in bed before I go to sleep. It’s such a nice new ritual (rituals are important right now). I’ve been reading all kinds of books: fiction, short stories, fairy tales, history of this or that genocide (of course: genocides/war/horror are a given on any Sheila Reading List), and some film books. It’s been nice to really get back into reading. I have never quite recovered my pace since the 2009 crack-up, and my situation right now, being forced to change my lifestyle, has really given me a lot of breathing space. I’ve filled it with reading. Well, and other things. Cooking, exercising, and thinking. But reading for an hour in my bed before I go to sleep is … it’s so simple, but it’s like this whole new world has opened up by making that time. I can’t quite explain how awesome it is, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
— My niece and nephew call me “Auntie She She”, and I hope they never stop. I walk in the door, they both look up, and run at me, calling, “She She!!!”
— I have been going to a lot of movie screenings, some for work, some for pleasure.
— I’ve had a couple of outings with friends, which is good. I was so out of it from around November to March, and while I always have the support of friends, I was a bit closed to the comfort they provided. I went out for pizza with three good friends the other night – we went to Arturo’s, an awesome pizza joint on Houston. The last time I was there was on a date in … 1998 or some other Ancient History Time. It’s great pizza, with a wonderful warm staff, and we had a lovely time. Much to catch up on. There are other friends I need to re-connect with, David, Maria, Jen, Allison … Now that I am feeling better I can actually be present.
— There is a bit of stagnant sense in some areas of my career, with two of my projects, and I know I need to escalate my activity. I’ve come too far to just let things go, to just accept the situation as it stands. I feel stronger now. I can get things moving again, I just need to start thinking about the right next steps. I am doing that.
— I’ve never watched Mad Men and I have also been using this recovery time to catch up and watch it on Netflix. I am not caught up yet, I just started season 5, so please, no spoilers!! In the first two seasons, three friends of mine have recurring roles, so it was hysterical watching it. I felt like I was visiting with them. “Hey, Rich, how the hell ya doin’? Good job in that scene there!” “Missy, what’s up!! Great job!!” I love the show, despite some of its uneven qualities. Season 5, we’re now into the Swinging Sixties, and change is blowing through the air. Change is good, but I miss the aesthetic of the early seasons, with its Art Deco old-school glamour. But it’s been fun watching it. The acting is great. I’ll write more about it once I’m caught up. Don’t tell me what happens, I beg you!!
— Watched Shattered Glass again the other day. I had gotten interested (again) in plagiarism controversies. The whole Jonah Lehrer thing was FASCINATING to watch unfold, and of course there’s a whole book written about the Jayson Blair situation (Hard News: Twenty-one Brutal Months at The New York Times and How They Changed the American Media
What? You’ve been sick? With so much writing and various adventures, I’ve sometimes wondered if you actually take time to sleep. My reading in bed consists of looking at the book for a couple of minutes, conking out, waking up long enough to notice that I never turned off the lights, and nodding out again. Anyway, take care.
Peter – ha! I am very familiar with the ritual you describe. Conking out fully clothed, lights on!! I really wanted to break that pattern for myself – and wanted to experiment with ways I could read in bed withOUT falling asleep the second my head hit the pillow. So far I have been successful and I really enjoy the time. Computer turned off, no checking my Phone, all digital stuff forbidden for me after 8 p.m. or so.
Huge life-changer.
And thanks for the nice thoughts. I am getting better. Uphill path, but I’m on my way. :)
I really enjoy Mad Men, but I ONLY watch it on Netflix, so I’m always a season behind. The reason? Besides the satisfaction of seeing as many episodes at a time as I want? The commentaries by Matt Weiner. After every episode, I watch it again with his commentary. Sometimes I’ll choose someone else’s – the actors or directors – but I so enjoy listening to his absolute excitement about what he’s created. This especially came across in the first few seasons. He discusses actors, characters, costumes, sets, tone – so many things. It’s almost like reading a Sheila essay!
Oooh, those commentaries sound really fun! I will check them out when I’m all caught up. Yes, the details in design, and costume – and products – just amazing. I also love the music choices. It’s a really interesting show – I have one more season until I’m all caught up!
Spoiler alert. Don Draper has affairs.
NO!!!!!
Two things:
As you know, my nephews and nieces call me “Tee Tee.” This didn’t start until Piper, though, the third of the six. Nonetheless, my older nephews, now 18 and 21, started calling me “Tee Tee” when it caught on and STILL call me Tee Tee. I love it. Cracks me up to hear them say it and it slays my heart to hear little Happy Jack say it. I hope She She goes on forever for you too. LOVE.
Mad Men — That’s so funny that you’re catching up. I had no idea you were doing that but I’m doing the same! Just got caught up yesterday, as a matter of fact — all the way to current shows. I caved in a bought half of season 6 on Amazon because I couldn’t bear to wait for Netflix to pick it up months from now. The acting is so damn good. I know everyone seems to hate Betty, but I’m endlessly fascinated by her. Her ambiguity is like crack to me. I don’t know why.
I am totally into Betty. I get thrilled whenever she shows up. THRILLED. I find her tremendously disturbing and I take her exTREMELY personally.
I am currently in love with Stan, the boorish art director who turns out to be hilarious. Sometimes he only has one line an episode, I don’t care – I always know it’s gonna be fun and interesting when he shows up.
The last episode I watched was when Don’s new wife Megan does that really embarrassing French song for him at his surprise birthday party. I am still reeling from the embarrassment. So that’s where I’m at in the sequence.
OMG, the song. I was dying, screaming at the screen for her to stop, for the love of God, stop!
Stan — Yes! I love Stan. I love the whole Peggy/Stan dynamic. And I have a huge soft spot for Roger Sterling, the king of the one-liners: “She died like she lived, surrounded by the people she answered phones for.”
There is a line of his from a recent episode — won’t give it away — that I keep repeating and frankly want to steal and pretend it’s mine. I’m STILL laughing about it.
Sheila, once you’ve caught up on Mad Men I strongly reccomend checking out Tom and Lorenzo’s Mad Style series – it made me look and costume design in a whole new way.
Cool! I will definitely do that!
I love Mad Men so much. That is all I have to say. My favorite TV show of all time. Will be SO sad to see it go.
Love that you are catching up on SLINGS & ARROWS while I am catching up on MAD MEN. I am psyched, in a way, that I am not “up to speed” yet because I still have so much more to look forward to. Love the show!
Brendan — Is it really true they’re calling it quits at the end of next season? Say it isn’t so!!
Tracey – I think my favorite line in the entire damn thing so far is from Mona, Roger Sterling’s ex-wife (who I remember vividly as the kind of creepy smile-less administrative assistant for Miles Trentell in 30something, lo, many years ago). Anyway, it’s the day of their daughter’s marriage (day after the JFK assassination) – and she’s trying to talk her daughter off the ledge and she says, “Just because she went to India doesn’t mean that she’s not an idiot.”
BRILLIANT use of a double negative and I am still laughing about it.
READING is soooooooooo relaxing, Sheila! It takes one’s mind off of everything as well and increasing knowledge and pleasure. I have even found that it helps to lower my blood pressure significantly and I’m sure there are a zillion other hidden benefits too. I love the smell of binding glue in the evening!
Kent – Yes – and so often I’ve just read books on my commutes. I still read on my commute, I always have a book with me, to read if I have an hour free in between this or that – but to carve out time, specifically for reading – an hour or so in bed – it’s been AWESOME. I really look forward to it.
Miss you!
Miss you too, wonderful Sheila! So glad to read you are healing and mending. Take good care of your precious self! UNH-HUH!!!
It’s good to catch up with what’s happening with you…even if indirectly. Are you around this weekend?? I miss you!
I miss you too – is it a long weekend for you? Maybe Sunday or Monday?
yes! either one…let me know.
Dear Sheila, so glad you are on the mend. Whatever it was seems to have taken it’s toll, so am happy that you are feeling better and catching up with important things like MAD MEN and “learning” to read in bed! Absolutely one of my favorite things. But if I leave it till really late, I fall asleep with the light on, too. Awful. You really have to time it correctly. Not an art, exactly, but takes some thought. Feel better.
Totally true about the timing, Melissa – I really had to change some patterns in my life in order to have that reading time in bed. I’m going to bed about three hours before I normally used to – so it’s all been quite bizarre, but I’m getting used to it now!
I always used to just fall asleep the second my head hit the pillow and envied those who could read in bed. I feel proud (haha) that I have somehow changed that pattern. It seemed unchangeable!
I also miss the early 1960s aesthetic in Mad Men. Because of the time difference, some of my friends and I had “Mad Men Mondays” in which we’d get together and watch the show.
Yeah, I think the second Don Draper shows up in a matching suit with bell-bottomed pants we’re in deep shit.
Glad you’re getting better. When you get a chance, give a listen to Anita O’Day–perhaps the wonderful bio doc on her called “Life of a Jazz Singer,” or the DVD appearance at Ronnie Scott’s in London, in 1986. She’s just so wonderful–you’ll love her I think, and find a lot to think about in her life story. Get well!
I love Anita O’Day!!
I’m glad you are doing better, I hope you stay on that arc. And I hope you can get your projects revving again.
Thanks so much!
So glad that you are taking care of yourself. Reading before going to sleep is THE BEST. My favorite ritual. Sometimes I think of it as courting dreams, even though I know you really can’t.
Yes, we rely on Netflix for MadMen too so we’re a season behind. I’m dying to catch up but we’re still getting through Battlestar Galactica Redux.
Also have that Norwegian film you wrote about on my queue.
Ted – which one? The one from Ebert Fest? Oslo, August 31st? I look forward to hearing your thoughts. There’s one scene in particular that I think is especially good – two friends talking, over the course of a morning. The scene moves from an apartment, to a park – to a bench … and it’s dialogue-heavy – not like a film at all, more like a play – and yet, in real life – friends often talk and talk and talk like this. It’s bold. It’s not just one scene, it spills over into 3 or 4. It’s a marathon of talk and both actors are just phenomenal.
“Courting dreams”. I love that!! No dreams as of yet. Haven’t had a dream in 20 years. But maybe that will come!
If the plan for you to get better includes going to bed early, reading what you like there, and getting some more sleep, it will probably work.
And help your body recharge so you can make your two current projects — the play and the Elvis book, presumably — wonderful successes.
Best of luck with all that.
Thank you so much!
Love your snapshots Sheila. They feel like the letters my cousin and I sent for years – just catching up. I’m sorry you’re needing healing but glad you’re on the mend and taking care of yourself. I too have been facing some health issues and spend every Monday in Chinatown trying to treat more than just symptoms. I’m glad you’re sleeping more – I remember you saying you sleep 5 hours, the same as my husband, and hearing that just makes an 8 hour sleeper’s jaw drop.
Yes, more sleep is on the agenda. I’m getting the hang of it now! :) Good luck with your health issues, Kate!
Spoiler Alert! It’s curtains for Draper. Sorry, I live with a frustrated stand-up comic who likes going around the house saying this…. Glad you are on the mend! though your recovery days sound like my energetic ones…great reading, as always…..Reg
“curtains for Draper” hahahahaha
I am happy for you, that your road to full recovery is progressing so nicely. Nothing is better for the body and soul than to be lost in a good book, a good film, and a good blog post, such as those found here!
I’m on the current season of Mad Men, but watching on DVR, so am always several episodes behind. It takes a lot of effort to avoid spoilers in this day and age! I look forward to reading your impressions here, once you are caught up.
Yes, VERY hard to avoid spoilers!! I have to resort to putting my hands over my ears and shouting, “LALALALALA”, which shows my maturity level.
Wonderful show – very disturbing, deep and dark. And oh so funny!
SHATTERED GLASS fascinates. For somebody who didn’t know the story in advance (and I know a couple people who saw it cold), it’d play as a story that starts being about a needy but likeable journalist unfairly maligned by a jealous colleague, then turns into a story about a principled editor who doggedly brings down a narcissist who nearly destroyed their publication. Peter Sargaard is an unpredictable actor – sometimes he’s miscast and misses by a mile – but Chuck Lane brings out his best poker-face. I’m still not sure how I feel about the bookends: It works better at the end than it does in the beginning. Of course we don’t know what’s really going on in the beginning, but the device still feels a little iffy.
Craig – yeah, good point. They seemed to feel they needed a “device”. Set him up as this wunderkind, show him showing off and then slowly reveal what horrors this guy is capable of. I also didn’t like how the clapping for the Chuck Lane in that final scene echoed the clapping for Stephen Glass in the classroom. I don’t buy that that staff would clap at that moment. (Maybe they actually did, I don’t know.) I think the glances around the table, sort of all of them acknowledging, “This is scary, this sucks, but this is the right thing to do” is enough – without the applause.
But it’s a quibble – the guts of the movie, that whole discovery process, is just riveting. Because up until almost the very final moment, Glass is still trying to lie himself out of it. He got “snowed” by a bunch of hackers, etc. And yes, think Sarsgard is amazing in it. I liked that the film sort of dealt with the Michael Kelly regime – how Glass was protected by Kelly – (that scene with Hank Azaria at the end is great, when he asks if Glass ever “cooked” any of the articles he wrote for him).
A really interesting ruthless look at how a sociopath operates. I thought Christensen was great too.
Interestingly enough – and you may be aware of this – Stephen Glass keeps trying to become a lawyer, and he keeps getting turned down. I think he’s in California now and they won’t admit him to the bar because of what happened at The New Republic. I am not sure where the situation stands right now. But I believe he’s been turned down three times at this point.
I loved how the film showed the high he got from his facile lying at those editorial meetings – how charming he was, self-deprecating – “are you mad at me?”. Really interesting!
Oh, God, yes: “Are you mad at me?” A cunning preemptive strike if ever there was one. I love Chuck’s terse reply: “No, I just want you get your notes.” Very good movie. I think on the DVD commentary – with the director, whose name escapes me (he later did that CIA turncoat movie with Chris Cooper), and the real Chuck Lane – Lane confirms what you pointed out as bogus: that he received no applause. Also glad you reminded me of Azaria, who is quite good in his relatively brief screen time.
Hope you keep feeling better.
Thanks, Craig – getting better every day!
There was a great interview with C huck Lane on, I think, NPR about the day he had Stephen Glass take him to that hotel and show him where the hackers convention (totally made up) was. Up until almost the last moment, Chuck wanted to believe that Glass had been “snowed” by a source. But it was that day when he realized that no … what had happened was much bigger than that. Much more incomprehensible.
I also like how the film never really addressed “why”. There were all these reasons he got away with it – Kelly turning a blind eye, the charming way he told stories, also he had worked as a fact checker at TNR and knew there were giant loopholes in the rigorous process. But still: WHY is what is interesting. What is it in this person that made him do this? I know that he was pretty much broken by his parents’ expectations of him – they wanted him to be a doctor. They never accepted who he was. But plenty of people go through that kind of childhood and don’t turn into sleek lying sociopaths. I find it fascinating.
I didn’t listen to the commentary track – I think my Netflix copy didn’t have one. I should definitely track it down. It sounds really interesting!
and wasn’t Zahn great? It’s so difficult to make staring at a computer screen compelling, disturbing, thrilling – he did. The look of dawning understanding on his face as he realized how big this thing was gonna be …
and the way Sarsgard says to Chole Sevigny, in their big confrontation after he fires Glass – “It’s indefensible.” GREAT line reading. Because she still wasn’t getting it, she liked Glass so much, she thought he was gullible maybe … she still couldn’t comprehend the enormity of what he did.
“This guy’s toast.” I love Zahn in just about everything, but playing a computer nerd-journalist is right down his wheelhouse.
Lane (the real one) also talks about that scene between Sarsgaard and Sevigny as not having happened, yet being a good summary of what he was feeling at the time. What’s amazing is how much he says happened verbatim. It’s a good track. It’s on the DVD I found a few years ago in a Best Buy bin for about five bucks.
Yes – “this guy’s toast”! He plays it cool, but you can also feel his adrenaline racing at what he has stumbled upon.