{"id":78952,"date":"2014-02-23T09:48:10","date_gmt":"2014-02-23T14:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=78952"},"modified":"2014-03-02T13:14:36","modified_gmt":"2014-03-02T18:14:36","slug":"snapshots-65","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=78952","title":{"rendered":"Snapshots"},"content":{"rendered":"

— Allison and I, while in Boston, were snowbound in our hotel on Sunday afternoon. We lay in bed and watched the documentary “The Armstrong Lie”, about Lance Armstrong. It’s fascinating and outrageous. We are a little bit obsessed with him, and have had lengthy conversations about him, and the behavioral tics that reveal his essential nature. The whole “I didn’t say she was fat” comment during the Oprah interview has been picked apart by the two of us as though we are forensic psychologists. So we watched the doc (which I recommend), and we had to keep pausing it for discussions, so that a 124 minute film was stretched out into a 5-hour mini-series basically. And that was why we drove all the way to the Boston in the teeth of another major snowstorm. No, not really. We had driven up to see comedian Mike Birbiglia<\/a> perform at the Wilbur Theatre, and he was fantastic. So funny. <\/p>\n

— I am currently reading Mark Helprin’s latest novel, In Sunlight and in Shadow<\/a>\"\"<\/i>, a gigantic intimidating tome. The first couple of chapters were rough-going but I have faith in him and things really started kicking in around Chapter 4 and now I can’t put it down. I could do without the constant reminders of how beautiful Catherine is, Helprin at one point says that she is “perpetually attractive”, and by that point I was like, “I get it, dude, I get it, you have a crush on your own character, it’s okay, but stop telling me how gorgeous she is.” However, she’s a great character, interesting and funny and odd, and the love story is completely improbable and unpredictable and breath-catchingly romantic. It’s filled with his typical swooning prose, something only he could get away with with a straight face. It’s another New York novel, like his masterpiece Winter’s Tale<\/i>, only this one takes place in 1947, a bustling prosperous and yet anxious time, with returning war veterans trying to step back into the rushing river of the mainstream culture. I picked up the book after the disheartening experience of watching the film of Winter’s Tale<\/i> (my review here<\/a>). I just wanted to immerse myself in Helprin’s writing again, and so far so good. Has anyone else out there read it yet? <\/p>\n

— Why People Are Awesome, Exhibit 739: A transcription of the musical notes seen on the derriere of one of the dudes being tortured in hell in a Bosch painting.<\/a> The girl who did the transcription (and make sure you listen to the clip of her plunking it out on a keyboard) is a college student in Oklahoma. I love her. I love people who go to the limit with things. <\/p>\n

— A rather mean-spirited observation, which normally I avoid, but in this case it cracked me up. In 2012, I had a brief and intense relationship with a guy I’ll call “Tim”. It did not end well. To put it mildly. “Are you mad at me?” he said in our last conversation. I said, “Not really. I just don’t think you’re a nice person now.” I probably would not make such a comment now, or who knows, being hurt makes people say all kinds of awful things. And he had lied to me just to keep me around, because he liked talking to me and wanted a woman in his life, blah blah. So, I still maintain that “nice” people do not behave that way. But whatever, I’m not perfect. Not my finest hour. The thing ended pretty much on that terrible note, he had wanted to “be friends” and quickly gave up that idea when he saw my reaction to it (“My friends are nice people. You are not.”), and I’ve never heard from him since. Not surprising – I wouldn’t have contacted me either after that – and is what I wanted, the words “good riddance” coming to mind. During 2013, my annus horribilis<\/i> as well as my annus mirabilis<\/i>, I’d think of him sometimes. Not always, but sometimes. I don’t remember much of it. Then I started getting better. I started prioritizing other things, and started practicing thought-stopping techniques with my doctor’s help. Not about him, he wasn’t the problem, it was those “what is going to happen to me?” thoughts that needed to be stopped. It took up a lot of time and energy, and I’m still working on it. The energy it took to get better completely took up all of my brainspace, and without even noticing it, months then passed without me thinking about “Tim” at all. Like, not even once. He vanished. But then maybe a week ago, he flew into my head, out of nowhere, but this is the weirdest thing: when he popped into my head, what I thought was, “Huh. Wonder what Tom’s up to.” That thought lasted only half a second before I shook myself, correcting myself in my brain: “I mean Tim. His name was Tim, not Tom.” For half a second I actually forgot the dude’s name. And then I laughed out loud. <\/p>\n

— In the next couple of weeks, I will have two brand-new nieces and\/or nephews! I am so excited, the countdown has really begun. I am proud of my siblings and very happy for them. I can’t wait to meet these little whippersnappers!<\/p>\n

— Lots of great stuff going on in the O’Malley clan: cousin Kerry’s A&E series Those Who Kill<\/i><\/a> premieres on March 3. Cousin Liam’s band Dr. Mars has an album out on iTunes<\/a> and they’re playing a show next week in Brooklyn. Pregnant sister Siobhan is now producing the weekly “Mortified” shows<\/a> here in New York City (where people read their high school diary entries, it’s a laugh-riot, you should check it out if you live here, or in other cities – it’s gone viral). And, as producer, she has put together something called “The O’Malley Family Band” – it’s hard to believe this has never been done yet, considering our Family Jamboree energy<\/a> – and The O’Malley Family Band play accompanying songs throughout the show. (Quote from cousin Liam after one of their rehearsals, “You guys. We just rocked Joe Public.”) The band consists of Siobhan on guitar, cousin Liam on guitar, cousin Ian on drums, and cousin Joshua on trumpet (he comes down from West Point for the shows. I mean, honestly, the awesomeness is too much to handle.) Cousin Mike has a new pilot he’s written that’s been picked up, a comedy series starring himself and LeBron James<\/a>. Which, come on, I’m already in love with it. And cousin Emma, who briefly gained international fame via Lena Dunham’s Twitter feed<\/a>, has been flown out to Los Angeles to try out as a writer for Girls<\/i>. So we’re all doing pretty well. As a matter of fact, the Industry Takeover is moving forward right on schedule. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

— Allison and I, while in Boston, were snowbound in our hotel on Sunday afternoon. We lay in bed and watched the documentary “The Armstrong Lie”, about Lance Armstrong. It’s fascinating and outrageous. We are a little bit obsessed with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[1101,600,640,1367],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78952"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78952"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79423,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78952\/revisions\/79423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}