hannah

It was Killer of Sheep yesterday, and Sinners today. One hard to find movie in a small four-screen independent theater, one playing just about everywhere - even taking special screening formats into account - in a multiplex on IMAX. One very quiet, one with a lot of sound. One trying to show you something so ordinary it becomes extraordinary, one trying to tell you a roaring story that takes you all the way out of yourself.

Two movies about being Black in America. Two movies that articulate the directors' intended visions as perfectly, forcefully, and gracefully as you could ask for. Two movies about the sublime power of music and its ability to transfix and transform and take you someplace else, wherever you happen to be. Two movies that each have a scene of people dancing that communicates the central thesis of the whole movie for the length of the song. Two movies with killing and death, and blood flowing freely. Two movies where there's barely the idea of a way out of a suffocating life, much less a means to achieve it. Two movies that capture a specific time and place, looking carefully at the community being portrayed, whether it's in the Mississippi Delta or Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood - it's the same struggle all over, no matter the time or place, to find a little bit of freedom and feel a little bit of joy.

It made for a wonderful double bill, just as I'd hoped they would.

I've commented before on how there's a better quality to cast-offs in New York City - classy trash, basically. Many people have, constantly and all over the place. Some people make careers off it. Personally, I just take it as it comes, like another very nice hoodie sweatshirt that's making its way into regular rotation.

Of note, today I talked to someone about the difficulties I've been having with submitting job applications or pitches to literary agents and how the difference with that is it's energy directed outward, while writing is energy directed inward and helps keep me going that way. I'm not sure what I'd need to do to get enough energy for both, but it feels good to put a set of specific words to it.

An incredibly moment happened to me today. Very Hollywood, very old Europe. I'd just met up with an old work contact and we were sitting outside, catching up, when out of the blue, someone addressed the contact by name: a friend of hers she rarely sees. But this friend happened to see my contact because I'd suggested we sit outside. They spoke, they made plans, the friend left, and we were pleased it happened.

Then, not long before we had to leave, someone walked by and addressed me by name. One of my parents' friends who's become a friend of mine, who I don't see much but always enjoy speaking with. We exchanged a few pleasant words, I joked we were microdosing Paris, she laughed and then left to continue on with her day. The contact and I talked a bit more, then we went our separate ways.

Her and me, start and end. Too tidy to be scripted, and almost too New York for words.

Chuck Taylor's changed their shoes, and nobody told me. I didn't think this was something I'd need to worry about, given how established their products are, but change has come to Converse high tops. I'm trying not to spiral about it and get deep into worry. Maybe if I'd gone into a store to buy them - but then, I thought a standardized, establish item wouldn't need me to go to a store to get a known quantity.

I figure I'll wear this pair for a while, given that they're already here in my apartment, and start finding alternate sources to get my hands on some shoes I can predict and deal with.

Between one thing and another, consolidating cards and papers and finding better places to keep certain objects, I've now got my nonfiction section onto bookshelves without any spilling off onto the floor. It's not that many linear feet of books, and as much better as it feels, it'll take a few days to get used to the sight. Most of what's on the shelves isn't where it used to be, so glancing over at the shelves has me feeling strange. I'll adjust because I like this more. But it'll still be an adjustment. And this isn't even getting into the books on the other side of the room. Or the additional papers I know I can uncover without much effort.

There's also a feeling of wanting to make space by using things up, which has me trying to get over myself and actually use the scented candles I've collected over the last few years. I need to appreciate the fact that I can't get more of them as the ephemeral experience they're meant to create.

In a case of "what am I going to do, sue myself", I've now finished editing and revising the novel I've decided to call Set Off Like Geese. I'll probably go back and browse through again, reread the beta's notes and nudge a couple of paragraphs around, and it's reached a state of being finished. At least, finished enough.

I'm going to enjoy the "what now?" feeling for a little while. Tomorrow, onward with something else.

Each year, the local greenmarkets do a "winter warrior" seasonal promotion to encourage year-round shopping at the markets when they're particularly lean and anemic, with each year having a different prize on completing a punch card of ten visits to a given market. I've brought home oven mitts, cooking spoons, key chains, reusable produce bags, and this year I earned a couple of magnetized shopping lists, the kind where it's a pad of paper attached to a magnet.

Given how weak the magnets are, I may just rip off the pads of paper and have them hang around my desk. The thing about that would be I did a little consolidating yesterday and got a lot of the loose pads and small notebooks into one spot, and I'd like to aim to work through some before starting others. Adding to the collection doesn't count. This meant looking through old notebooks I don't much want to keep around, and saying that enough was enough and I should toss those old monthly planners from a decade ago instead of letting them collect dust. As soon as I did that, I decided some old textbooks I'd shoved off into a corner had been around long enough, too, so now they're heading out. The cascade effect's got me thinking how to consolidate my computer CDs with my music CDs - I still have Microsoft Office on CD! What an antique! - and where to put old cards from old friends I don't want to look through or throw out or have occupy the bookshelf when I could put books there and get some off the floor.

Also to keep ripping DVDs to get the objects out of my place while keeping access to what's on the objects. As well as some other objects in order to use the box holding them. One thing at a time.

One of the bigger problems with relying on scrounging and scavenging is how hard it is to replace anything. Sometimes the tag's worn down so much I can't easily tell who made a pair of pants, and searching for gray workout leggings might as well have me trying to find a needle in a pile of needles. There's also that I've got no way to find out where the item came from, or where I could pay money for another one - it turns out the stepstool I've got was manufactured by a company that doesn't exist anymore. It could be that the model of leggings was discontinued back in 2022.

I know I can buy some heavy-duty glue to repair the stepstool instead of trying to find a suitable replacement. I don't know how long the repairs would last, or what I'd do if I break it past the point of being able to fix it. Accepting I'll have to buy something close to it that isn't the same is going to take some time. Unless I happen to get unexpectedly lucky, but that's another thing about relying on scrounging: you have to take what you can get, and you can't ask to see something else in another color.

Getting $7 in a class action settlement is an indication of how many people were compensated for the amount I got to be that low, a reminder to always go for cash if it's an option, to always look to a settlement, and a quiet, small moment of some level of accountability. As is said, a fine is a price. At least someone paid it this time.

That $7 is going to buy me a couple very nice cups of coffee.

I thought I'd go into Brooklyn today, but when that didn't happen, I went to a bakery and got granola and a California breakfast bun. I bought an Adrienne Rich poetry collection at a discount, with exact change. I cooked some lunches for the next few days and spent some time editing the current project - five more chapters, and then I can move onto something else. I answered a bunch of fic comments and said thank you to a lot of birthday wishes.

It's been a low-key birthday, and it's been a good one.