Monthly Archives: May 2004

The Eyes Have It

For some rea­son, I can’t stand any­thing that has to do with eye injuries. I have no idea why. During movies, the only thing that will usu­al­ly make me look away is an eye gouge, or an eye stab, or an eye pluck. Things like that dis­gust me so much that I can’t even write about them.

So Wheaties has this fish with an infec­tion on its left eye. The infec­tion looks like a fun­gus, but it isn’t a nor­mal blotchy mold, it’s a white growth that comes out in sharp spikes. At one point the spikes were longer than the width of its head, and it was float­ing side­ways because it prob­a­bly could­n’t see out of that eye. It’s not so much the fact that the fish has an eye infec­tion (although that’s bad enough already), but the fact that the infec­tion seems so devi­ous­ly struc­tured, almost intel­li­gent, with these long, sharp spikes that jut out direct­ly from the eye. All I can pic­ture is try­ing to cure the fish by putting some med­i­cine in there, and the spikes going limp and falling off, or hav­ing to pull off each spike indi­vid­u­al­ly with pair of tweez­ers. Every time I pass by the aquar­i­um I don’t dare look. Just think­ing about it lit­er­al­ly gives me the shiv­ers. Must be the sin­gle most dis­gust­ing thing I’ve ever seen.

Movie Review: Troy

Troy end­ed up being a mediocre movie, that did­n’t have much plot, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, or any good action scenes (save one, maybe two). I’m sure there was more in it for the girls than the guys. I mean, Diane Kruger is hot, but much bet­ter with­out all the make­up and frills. I was pleas­ant­ly remind­ed about Odysseus’s lit­tle part in the sto­ry, although they got Sean Bean to por­tray him, the actor who also tries to kill Frodo in Lord of the Rings, betrays his part­ner in Equilibrium, screws up a weapons deal then throws up in the get­t­away car in Ronin, and tries to destroy England in GoldenEye.

After see­ing Bean in these fuck-up, bad guy roles, it’s hard to imag­ine him as the great Greek hero, espe­cial­ly since Odysseus has always been my favourite Greek char­ac­ter. He’s the guy who’s total­ly bal­anced; a brain, an ath­lete, a host, a war­rior, an artist, famous for his clev­er­ness and cun­ning. He’s the guy who stayed faith­ful to Penelope while being pur­sued by Calypso and Circe, the guy who dared to lis­ten to the sirens sing, the guy who came up with the idea of the Trojan horse, the guy who tried every­thing in his pow­er to get his crew home safe­ly through every obsta­cle imag­in­able, but the only one with the tenac­i­ty to make it. If Odysseus was alive today, I’d give him my props.

120 Lbs.

Somehow, between now and the last time I went home, which was about two months ago, I gained three pounds. Three pounds is HUGE to me. Now I’m 120, a weight goal I was try­ing to hit by the time I was in my mid-30’s. Instead of eat­ing choco­late eclairs, ice cream, chips and dip, indi­vid­u­al­ly wrapped Reeses Peanut Butter Cups, straw­ber­ry cheese­cake, choco­late bars, and oth­er such munch­ables, I’m going to try to take advan­tage of post-ses­sion taste enhance­ment and eat fruits, veg­eta­bles, yoghurt, and oth­er healthy foods. There’s just some­thing about salt though, a cer­tain taste that can’t be found in the fruits that I like. Except for bananas. Bananas rule.

I need to pick up some bananas today.

Inner Barrier

This pho­to I do devel­op and print and when­ev­er I look at it, it chills my heart and I can’t look at it for long. I real­ize that it brings to the sur­face the dark aspect in the depths of my soul, which ter­ri­fies even me. I can only recoil when con­front­ed by beau­ty or evil.

—nar­ra­tor, Soul Mountain

For some, every day is a strug­gle.

Me? I tend not to notice.

(Finally.)