"W*O*L*D" by Harry Chapin
"Wait" by the Beatles
"Wait a Minute" by the Pussycat Dolls and Timbaland
"Wait Till I Get There" by Eric Durrance
"The Waiting" by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
"Waiting for the Sun" by the Doors
"Waiting for the Worms" by Pink Floyd
"Wake Up Little Susie" by the Everly Brothers
"Walk Away Renee" by the Four Tops
"Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Bangles
"Walk Like an Egyptian" by the Puppini Sisters
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I'd meant to write a blog post yesterday about Torchwood: Children of Earth, but in the event it took me all day to finish up the new draft of Inheritance. I'd therefore intended to blog about Torchwood today instead; but then last night, Lisa and I saw I Love You, Beth Cooper, the new movie about a nerdy high school valedictorian who uses the opportunity of his valedictory speech to confess his love for the school's head cheerleader at their high school graduation, and about the series of adventures he, his best friend, said head cheerleader and her two best friends have in the ensuing wild night. So I guess I'll have to put Torchwood off till my next post.
Like Denis, Beth Cooper's protagonist, I spent high school in the grips of an unrequited crush on the prettiest girl in school. Everyone reading this now either did go to high school with me, or didn't. If you didn't, her name would mean nothing to you; if you did, you already know exactly who I mean.
So I saw a lot of myself in I Love You, Beth Cooper, which has certainly colored my reaction to the film. But honestly, I had a great, great time.
I hadn't read the book on which the movie was based, though Lisa had. The author (also the movie's screenwriter) is a former writer for Beavis and Butt-Head and The Simpsons, which should give you some notion of how crass and funny the film can be when it goes for funny-crass, and how smart and funny it can be when it goes for funny-smart. I confess I'm interested in reading the book now, since according to Lisa, the movie's script was essentially "the book but with less nudity and sex".
For me, clever writing, characters with quirks* and a cast who are all perfect for their parts really came together--I particularly liked Alan Ruck (Ferris Buehler's best friend Cameron) and Cynthia Stevenson as Denis's parents, and Lauren Storm as Treece, the kinky nymphomaniac of Beth Cooper's two best friends.
Lisa confesses that she's a bit surprised how much I liked a film that, as she puts, is aimed at sixteen-year-old girls. But I don't think it is just aimed at sixteen-year-olds. It's certainly packaged for sixteen-year-olds, but it has a quality of universality that belies that the movie the filmmakers were secretly making was something with a touch of nostalgia for those of us who remember being sixteen. That, I think, is the secret to the great high school movies, like The Breakfast Club, Ferris Buehler's Day Off or Varsity Blues.
Not that I Love You, Beth Cooper is on a level with The Breakfast Club. But it's smart and funny and is pervaded by that air of sexual desperation that puts it at least up there with Superbad or Ten Things I Hate About You. Well worth a look.
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Last night I finished the last of the four major points of revision I felt the first draft of Inheritance needed. Now over the next three days I'm going to go back and reread the whole thing; with a hefty addition and two large chunks of the book thrown out and replaced with something different, the new text demands that I smooth over its joins with the original, so to speak, by going through the whole manuscript line by line to fix any offhand references to what was there before. And then I'll have an official second draft ready for when I see Katie this weekend.
(I also need to get in touch with Sabrina and get a copy of the new draft off to her, too.)
I'm a bit sad to report that the crap bit is still rather crap; I'm just not sure what it's going to take to have something decent filling that (rather essential) portion of the storyline. But I'd say it's a good thirty per cent or so less crap, and--critically--it's been reduced from three chapters of crap to just one (albeit a somewhat long one).
At the moment, though, I'm just enjoying that, so long as I read 14 chapters a day for the next three days, I'm all done with those revisions and can start concentrating on my next project for a bit.
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Today I decided to have pasta for lunch.
So I boiled and drained some farfalle, then tossed it with Italian sausage marinara sauce. I heated up some meatballs and added them to the pasta, then topped it with diced onions and--since we were out of Target's six-Italian-cheeses blend--shredded parmesan. Then I heated it all up in the microwave for a minute to melt the cheese.
Only after I sat down to eat did I notice the cheese was mouldy.
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"Va pas prendre un tambour" by Françoise Hardy
"Vacancy" by Harry Chapin
"Vacation" by Connie Francis
"Valentine" by the Delays
"Van Diemen's Land" by U2
"Ventura Highway" by America
"Venus and Mars" by Paul McCartney & Wings
"Venus and Mars (Reprise)" by Paul McCartney & Wings
"Vera" by Pink Floyd
"Victim of a Foolish Heart" by Joss Stone
"Victim of Love" by the Eagles
"Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Presidents of the United States of America
"Vintage Clothes" by Paul McCartney
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Yesterday Lisa woke me up about 5.30 in the morning because she was having continuous cramping in her back and pelvis. This was rather troubling since she was still one day short of 32 weeks into her pregnancy--in other words, she's just barely seven months along.
She called the doctor, who told her to head to the hospital. Unfortunately the hospital is actually a 45-minute drive from us, as getting the same OB/GYN as Lisa had when she was pregnant with Paul necessitates Abby being born at the same hospital, way back in Maryland.
We finally arrived, and after Lisa was eventually and admitted and taken back into the bowels of L&D, Paul and I headed down to the cafeteria, where I watched him systematically demolish an entire glazed doughnut. After we headed back upstairs, though, I discovered that Paul was not allowed back to see Lisa, which meant neither was I. So Paul was stuck in the waiting room, and Lisa was stuck on her own, lying in a hospital bed with a thousand monitors stuck to her.
Once the time reached a civil hour I called Darcy, who had agreed (just the day before!) to take Paul when Lisa and I have to head to the hospital for the Final Event, and she came and picked Paul up. So Paul got to spend the morning at the Takoma Park Independence Day parade and macking on Darcy's daughter Delia, and I got to head back and sit with Lisa.
They had determined that Abigail was fine, and that Lisa wasn't in labour. Her cramps weren't contractions, as they weren't showing up on the contraction monitor. (Occasional contractions were showing up, which is obviously perfectly normal for a seven-month pregnant whalewoman and demonstrated that the machine was hooked up correctly, and it wasn't just that Lisa's uterus was contracting without the monitor picking up the contractions.) Over time they subsided, and eventually Lisa was released simply with instructions to take everything as easy as possible for the duration of her pregnancy.
Best guess is that her muscles--especially those in her back (she's had periodic back problems ever since she gave birth to Paul)--simply aren't as strong as they were before her first pregnancy, and the pain she was feeling was the stretching of the circle ligaments running from her lower back to her pelvis. The strain they're under is exacerbated by the fact that she's carrying Abigail extraordinarily low--before we left, the nurse put her hand on Lisa's stomach and, surprised at how low Abby was, said, "Yeah, I don't think this one's planning on a full forty-week stay." (For the record, Paul not only lasted into his 42nd week, but ultimately refused to leave without being induced.)
So we left the hospital and went out to lunch with Darcy and Andy, then headed back home, where all three of us spent the rest of 4 July soundly asleep.
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The weekend my parents arrived in England, my aunt Jean--at whose house we were all staying--invited all his brothers and their families over for a family gathering. My cousin James brought his girlfriend and her two sons, one seven, one fourteen.
In Jean's garden was the foam football Paul had had so much fun playing with, and the two boys started kicking it around. Soon the fourteen-year-old started doing tricks with the ball, flicking it up in the air and then keeping it aloft by catching it on the top of his foot, over and over again.
"Hey!" Paul shouted, running over to the whole group sitting out on Jean's patio, "My dad can do that! My dad can do that!" Soon I was being asked to demonstrate, and I had to aver because, you know, I didn't want to show anyone else up with my mad ball control skilz.
What exactly is it I can do that a three-year-old finds as impressive as the ability to keep the ball airborne indefinitely with the right foot? I can keep the ball up by heading it, and I can keep it up through two--maybe even three--contacts with the ball.
Dads are awesome.
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Average White Band: "Pick Up the Pieces" (1974)
Carpenters: "Please Mr. Postman" (1974)
Cher: "Dark Lady" (1974)
The City of Prague Philharmonic: "The Exorcist - Tubular Bells" (1973)
John Denver: "Annie's Song" (1974)
John Denver: "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" (1974)
The Doobie Brothers: "Black Water" (1974)
KC and the Sunshine Band: "That's the Way (I Like It)" (1975)
Gordon Lightfoot: "Carefree Highway" (1974)
Van McCoy: "The Hustle" (1975)
The O'Jays: "For the Love of Money" (1973)
The Puppini Sisters: Betcha Bottom Dollar (2006)
The Puppini Sisters: The Rise and Fall of Ruby Woo (2007)
Pure Prairie League: "Amie" (1972)
ZZ Top: "Tush" (1975)
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Besides the Yorkshire Ripper and the Black Panther, Bradford--where I'm from--is famous for really only one thing: its massive South Asian population has made it the curry capital of the world. So I was a bit disappointed when we spent 24 hours there last weekend and didn't have a single curry.
A few days later, though, we planned to drive from Sunderland to Manchester, and since Bradford lies on the route between the two, less than an hour northwest of Manchester, my parents conceived the idea of stopping there and having a curry for lunch. On the way down, I suggested we also stop by Valley Parade--the home stadium of Bradford City Association Football Club--and head into the club shop.
We headed to the stadium before lunch. Only one employee was present, and my dad asked him about any decent curry places located nearby.
"I'm not actually from Bradford," he said. "I have to ask directions whenever I go somewhere."
Bradford City being such a small club--currently they play in League Two, the fourth and lowest tier of English professional football--there's only so much space that the club shop can fill with jerseys and with a handful of t-shirts about how awful Leeds United are. The remaining floor space is given over to other, non-Bradford City items manufactured by City's kit manufacturer, Surridge.
Surridge, it turns out, is principally a cricket outfitter, and in the back of the club shop I found a rack with the caps from all the various cricket clubs Surridge is the manufacturer for; I would guess over half the counties were represented. Neither my dad nor I particularly follow cricket--not least because it's so impossible to find in the States--but we figured that, with the caps priced at only two quid apiece, we'd pick up a Yorkshire cap if we could find one.
We'd have expected Yorkshire's emblem to be a White Rose, but none of the caps had a White Rose. There were, however, several emblems that we couldn't identify, so in the hopes that one of them was Yorkshire, I took them over to the store clerk and asked if he knew what teams they belong to, or if he knew if he had a Yorkshire cap in stock.
"Search me, mate," he said. "Your guess is as good as mine."
So ... the only employee in Bradford City's club shop is neither from Bradford, nor, apparently, much into sport.
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PS Yorkshire's emblem is indeed the White Rose, and their kit manufacturer is Canterbury, not Surridge.
"U & Me=Love" by Jewel
"Una Página Doblada" by Orishas
"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" by Wings
"Under African Skies" by Paul Simon
"Under Control" by Parachute
"Under My Thumb" by the Rolling Stones
"Under Pressure" by Queen
"Under the Boardwalk" by the Drifters
"Under the Bridge" by Red Hot Chili Peppers
"Underground" by Men at Work
"Underneath the Sky" by Oasis
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