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This afternoon I went to my beloved Vista Theatre, with its $6.50 bargain matinees and its quasi-Egyptian decor and its ultra-spacious seating, to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes. On one level it's yet another loud, frenetic thriller--but at the same time, it deals with many of the social/political/power issues that the original series did, and it's also a very satisfying character study, thanks to Andy Serkis's affecting, multi-layered portrayal of Caesar. (There are also some other fascinating ape characters in the film, notably an orangutan named Maurice, after Maurice Evans's Dr. Zaius!) As an old school Planet of the Apes fan, I never thought I could care about a new Apes character the way I did about Roddy McDowall's Cornelius and Caesar or Kim Hunter's Zira, but I'm happy to have been proven wrong. Serkis absolutely deserves a best actor nomination--or, for that matter, a supporting actor nomination, though the film would have fallen utterly flat without him. The Academy probably won't bother to acknowledge him, but I don't expect to see a better performance in a movie this year.

Today I got to meet skogkatt! We had brunch at Coffee Table, and then she got to meet the Garage Kitty. The kitty skedaddled when Julia tried to take her picture, but later on she managed to sneak a photo.

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In Ryan's Hope news, this evening I watched an old Law & Order ep (from 1993) that featured both Michael Levin (Jack Fenelli) and Tovah Feldshuh (Martha McKee #1), but, sadly, not in the same scene.

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I had a three day weekend, but it sure has zoomed by.

It looks like our latest massive rainstorms are done (in time for the Superbowl, for those who care--I'm not one of 'em). I just popped out to Trader Joe's (packed full of people shopping for Superbowl parties), and before I could leave for TJ's, found the Garage Kitty parked behind my back left tire, waiting to spring into meowing action. So she got tuna. She seems to be holding up despite the cold, wet weather.

I woke up this morning thinking about chapter 27 of the Jo book. That's the final chapter of the book, though I'm still in the midst of chapter 25. So today I've written about 550 words of chapter 27, plus tinkered with chapter 25. After dinner (little burgers from TJ's), there will be more work on chapter 25.

I've been watching the BBC miniseries of Portrait of a Lady, which is unaccountably like watching paint dry--but I can't stop watching, because Richard Chamberlain is marvelous as Ralph Touchett, and I love Beatrix Lehmann and Rachel Gurney. But why does it suck so badly (aside from having one or two of the more egregiously bad faux-American accents ever)? It's written by Jack Pulman of I Claudius fame! Hmph.

I've just watched a '70s TV production of Eugene O'Neill's Ah, Wilderness! featuring young Richard Backus and young Victor Garber! And the other night I caught part of the Leslie Howard version of Romeo and Juliet. Howard managed to make his Romeo appealing (though he was at least twenty years too old for the role) and Basil Rathbone was a fantastic Tybalt, but I was amazed by what pains they took to make John Barrymore's (ha! I just wrote John Berryman!) Mercutio appear heterosexual. Maybe I'm too used to John McEnery's very in-love-with-Romeo Mercutio from the Zeffirelli film, but I did a double take every time John Barrymore flirted with the bevy of dialogueless women who'd apparently been put there solely for that purpose.

Sign outside Trader Joe's: SMALL ONE-BEDROOM APARTMENT IN GLENDALE FOR RENT. ONE PERSON MAX.

So I suppose fewer than one person would be preferable?

Doing lots of noveling today. Finally showing chapter 13 who's boss. (Chapter 13 is usually boss, but today it's me!) Also grocery shopping and watching the Y&R marathon on Soapnet. I've been to Trader Joe's, and in a moment I'll head to Gelson's for a few items. I'm craving peaches.

There will be TJ's Indian food for dinner.

Tomorrow: henna day.

Still working on chapter twelve. I needed my characters Jo and Martin to see something when they're carrying furniture down the street in Jo's new neighborhood, and I couldn't figure out what--so I took a break and went to Trader Joe's. It was mobbed, the way it always is before the Oscars. When I was waiting in line with my basket of groceries, I noticed an adorable golden retriever and a smaller black dog tied to a post outside the store, devotedly watching their owners (who were also in line) through the sliding glass doors. People kept petting the dogs, but especially the golden retriever, which had such a kindly face. Then the owners got through the checkout and hurried out to their overjoyed dogs.

And I came home and gave the golden retriever a cameo appearance in chapter twelve.

The chapter twelve revisions are crawling along, but in a productive way. The chapter is no longer a mess. Instead it's almost...chapter-like.

It's been raining on and off for the past day or so. When I got home from work last night, the living room window had leaked a bit, but not more than the paper towel I'd left there could handle. No windows leaked during the night, which is fairly encouraging, as when I left for work this morning, the gutters in my neighborhood were raging torrents. Hope the windows stay dry in my absence today.

Ryan's Hope continues to be awesome, as does One Life To Live (which currently has some of the most elegant writing and direction on TV, plus the riveting Trevor St. John and Susan Haskell, plus the hilarious Tuc Watkins as formerly shallow and greedy David Vickers, now transformed into Buddhist David Vickeroshi!). General Hospital is 90% embarrassingly bad, 10% good enough to not throw in the towel, damn it.

This has felt like a very long week. This weekend: noveling, reading, DVD-ing, grocery shopping. Plus Henna Day, and then on Sunday night, Spaceland.

Last night I drove to Marina del Rey to see my friend Adam Marsland's band at Brennan's, along with the Condors and a band called Artichoke that played a set of songs about animals from A-Z (skipping a few letters along the way), including odes to the mosquito, sea urchin, yak, and zebra. (Quite good!)

Today I've gone to Trader Joe's and Gelson's, and I cannot stop eating the Seedy Little Currant Cookies from TJ's. Now I'm desultorily chipping away at the chapter twelve revisions...

I worked on the chapter eleven revisions on and off all day, and they are pretty much done. Hooray! I finally found solutions for the pesky problem areas. I want to convert the file to an audio version tomorrow so I can listen to it before I pronounce it finished. Looking forward to chapter twelve, which I will be mostly writing from scratch--a joy to do some first drafty writing, after all the endless rewrites.

It was another insanely gorgeous day today. I walked to Trader Joe's, checked out an antique shop that opened on my street, and visited the You're Charging That for THIS? boutique. Also read NANA vol. 14 (awesome), had a nice phone chat with Adam, watched Dark Shadows, and made angel hair pasta with smoked salmon and bruschetta sauce for dinner, with cherries and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Now to curl up with a book as my weekend winds down.

Today has been much less stressful than yesterday, and I'm sitting here with a nice cup of Irish breakfast tea with milk and sugar. I just got back from Trader Joe's, where I bought lots of goodies, including their new pomegranate and blueberry cereal, turkey meatloaf, precooked rack of lamb, brie with mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes, Spanish white wine, mini cheeseburgers, cornbread, etc.

I had better luck today with my calls to Nevada for Obama than I did last week. I spoke to perhaps half of the people on my list. Four or five were Obama voters, and almost all of those had already voted, hooray! Only one person said she was voting for McCain. The one undecided voter I spoke to had just been laid off, so I talked about Obama's plan to give tax credits to businesses that create new jobs. I was berated by two people, though not for political reasons. One crankily said she works the swing shift and I woke her up (at 2 pm), though one would think she would turn the ringer off during the day. The other complained that she's received a lot of these calls (which may be true, but she's the only person I've called who's ever said so), and that if it keeps up, she may well flounce off not vote! But for the most part people were nice enough.

Also today I've worked on the edits for my story for Shimmer's Clockwork Jungle Book issue. I hope to send 'em back to the editor no later than tomorrow. Also I want to work on chapter nine of the Jo book and read some more Half a Crown (and watch some Dark Shadows).