the ocean

First things first, this is not going to be any sort of discourse on Barbie and its nominations and/or non-nominations. I'll leave the hot takes to the people who actually want attention. (Well, I want it, but only the positive kind.) I did finally see Barbie and enjoyed it but I've never for a second believed that awards nominations would ever be any sort of objective barometer of quality or social worth or any of those things. The Oscars are just a thing that happens and its fine or its not but at least it's not sports for five seconds every year.

Anyway, as we often do, we've been trying to see some of the Oscar movies. It's not ideal, as it will require some degree of leaving the house in winter, as several of the nominees are not yet available on demand. But we did see Maestro, which I liked. I'm actually a complete expert on Bernstein because I read a biography of him last year, and I thought the movie was a good representation of his complexity. And frankly I would have been good just hearing the music again, because it's amazing. We also saw Saltburn, which ended up being nominated for nothing, but I really enjoyed it. Yes, it was insane and filthy and thank god I didn't try to watch it with my mother, but I thought it was beautifully shot, well acted, and completely worked on its own crazy terms. I do reject any attempt to label Barry Keoghan as "hot," as he is like four feet tall and a bit busted, but I'll look at anybody nude. 

We saw Oppenheimer this summer and thought it was good? Maybe I've posted about this before? I'm too lazy to go back and look, but I thought the acting was strong, the story was well put together, and it didn't feel as long as it was. And I generally feel like I could cut twenty minutes out of every single movie without anybody really missing anything. And we saw The Holdovers. I guess I thought I'd laugh more, but I don't really know why I thought that. It was well done and I enjoyed it just fine. Feel free to put that quote on a poster.

Anyway, I guess we're about halfway through the best picture nominees. I doubt we'll make it all the way, but hey, we're doing stuff.

It has been a wild weather week here in Chicago. Below zero temperatures (Fahrenheit, not Celsius, for the entire rest of the world) and a bit of snow. As regular readers of this space will know, cold weather makes me crazy. I had to wait ten minutes for trains a couple of times this week and I found myself swearing audibly to myself. Also, I wanted to scream at people on the train to take their goddamned backpacks off so they weren't constantly smacking others with them unintentionally. (This used to be an unwritten rule of train etiquette, along with maintaining respectful silence during rush hour, but of course COVID ruined everything.) So yes, things are going well. 

I did bring out my space heater at work. It has become one of my most treasured possessions, because I love to sit right over it and essentially roast myself, but I am also incredibly insecure about it, since it is technically against building policy. (Or maybe it's some kind of local ordinance, I don't know. It's not like I'm a lawyer or anything.) I hide it at night because I fear someone from building management taking it away, as I heard tell happened at my last building. Have space heaters actually led to towering infernos before and I just don't know about it? This is 100% possible given my level of awareness of news.

My amateur theatrical for lawyers was this weekend. As my regular readers will know (hi, mom) I am part of a rather ridiculous concept whereby licensed attorneys spend several weeks learning parody songs and dances to present in an array of wigs and costumes at a theater that is way too nice to host such madness. (If you know what Capitol Steps was, it's kind of like that, and also congratulations on being middle aged and nerdy.) We took a few years off for the pandemic, so this was our first big show in a while. And we were at a different theater after like eight years in the same spot. And we did it in January instead of December. So much change! How could we ever triumph over such adversity?