Out of Focus

Currently Reading: All She Was Worth By Miyuki Miyabe

You know, ever since CC went on her business trip to Nebraska I've been slipping out of focus. It's more than the normal amount of distraction that people go through from time to time. Not quite enough to qualify for a depression or even the blues. I've just been sort of . . . blurry.

Perfect example of what I mean: this morning I was reading the news online. I'd called up an article about that train wreck in Glendale. The headline said something about charging a guy with 11 counts of murder and that caught my eye. I pull up the article and started reading through it. Next thing I know, my eyes are down at the bottom of the page and I have NO idea what I'd just read. My mind just started wandering onto other topics.

This sort of thing doesn't bother my driving, thank goodness, or any active pursuit I happen to be engaged in. It only happens during the passive things like reading or listening to the radio or watching TV. Ok maybe letting your mind wander while watching TV is actually pretty normal and even a GOOD thing.

Which reminds me of something else in fact (mind wandering here, see how it works?). TV has gotten better since I started losing my hearing and the more hearing I lose, the better it gets. No, don't laugh, it's true. I'm at the point now where if I don't turn up the volume or wear hearing aids, I can't hear the TV except when the action is at its loudest (explosions, crashes, etc.). That means I have to sort of supply my own voices and level of acting skills to go along with the captioning. Naturally I try and put in the best I can think of. Who wants to sit around watching bad TV? But it's a double-edged sword. When the jokes are REALLY bad or the script is poorly written, no amount of good acting can save it in my head. All I have to go by is what the words say and what the actors DO. How they say something, no longer a factor.

I've really become a big fan of foreign films (see how the mind just jumps around?). Captions are built right in. I never was much into them before but now, I go out of my way to look for good foreign movies at the video store.

Memoirs of a Geisha. Japanese setting. Most of the main roles went to Chinese people. Odd isn't it?

Japanese movies, so many are being re-made in America. The Ring and its sequels, The Grudge and its sequels now too. So far it seems to mainly be the horror movies that are getting made here but then again, there was last year's Shall We Dance, which is based on a MUCH better Japanese movie.

I'm starting to think Hollywood has run out of good, original ideas and now they just mine other sources. Do we REALLY need a Dukes of Hazzard movie? The one exception is animation. Well, let's be more specific, Pixar. If you haven't had a chance to see The Incredbiles, go out and see it while it's still in theaters. That movie was FANTASTIC.

And so now you see how it works. What was I originally talking about? My mind wandering. Ended up talking about movies. Weird.

But do you know what's even more weird? I woke up this morning thinking in verse. I'm not making this up, I was actually thinking in couplets (poetry term, lines that rhyme). This would have been a good thing if I was back in college working on my English degree. I could have jotted down a few lines and saved them for the next time I had to write poetry for a class. Now? Best I could hope for is to turn it into a bad country music song.

Oh hey, did you catch American Idol on Tuesday? Gene Simmons from Kiss was the guest judge. Hard rock, flash rock, 70's metal band. At one point he tells one of the guys auditioning that he, former Kiss member, is a big country/western fan. That's just wrong on SO many levels :-)

And speaking of music . . . :-)