I have to admit it.... I have a crush on Hellboy. He's so endearingly....big and red. Ask me why I don't have a crush on the Kool-aid Man. The big question though, is whether I have a crush on Hellboy, or Ron Perlman. I loved the man in City of Lost Children (a gem that you must see NOW if you have not yet). I think playing gentle, hulking weirdos becomes him.

Watched Intolerable Cruelty tonight. Brilliantly written, and without the blood I sometimes associate with Cohen Bros films. "Ah!--" you might say, "But 'O' Brother Where Art Thou' was not a bloody film!" To which I would reply, "THE COWS." (Gore can be as unsettling being heard, but not seen. Anyone who's watched 'Shallow Grave' can attest to that.) In any case, I enjoyed it. It reminded me in some ways of Down With Love. All the snappy dialogues, without the kitch.

The new job is hard to comment on. Part of the reason is that people who read this blog are associated with it. Part of it is that I deal with people's personal medical information every day. Ok. Most of the reason is that. I'm not a bookseller anymore. I'm someone who buys books, or would, if I had the money. The delightful part is that I can feel free to comment on the ignorance and audacity of other customers if I so choose. I... I haven't actually commented, uh, aloud yet, but darn it, I'm free to! For the first time in years, there is no part of my life governed by the rules of customer service. I am content to hide in a basement office behind a computer and communicate with the people I need to solely by email. I'm not the "face" of anything but myself. I don't have to conduct myself on behalf of an organization. Actually, that's not exactly true. The emails I write for work are unnecessarily cheery and friendly. I suppose that counts as putting a friendly face on my company.

The sad thing about the way my life goes because of this job is that, though I make a bit more money than I did selling books, I'm left with as little, since I'm now tied to putting the same percentage toward debt. I don't have debt because I'm a shopaholic. I have it because the car broke down enormously, then I was incapacitated for four months and still had to pay bills, then the other car broke, we bought a house, and the car broke down again, etc etc etc...
It's scary not to have a cushion of emergency credit. But it's the only way I'm every going to get out of this. It also means that I can't take a week off work unless I save up enough banked hours to cover it, or I've been there a year.

Listening to Guster right now, and thinking about the book I'm reading currently - _Future Noir: The Making of Bladerunner_ by Paul Sammon. I enjoy the insights he provides, having been present during much of the filming process and having written more about the film that probably any journalist... BUT... (there's always one.) I get the feeling I got reading _The Man Who Could Taste Shapes_. The feeling is that, deep down, secretly, the books were written as an exciting expose of the author's coolness. Names are dropped like...like flies(?) and certain phrases make me kind of wrinkle my nose. Paul Sammon insists that "this humble writer was not worthy of being in all thse cool places and talking casually to all kinds of huge people you'll never meet in real life," just a little too often. The author doth protest too much. By the same token though, the book is very interesting. Who knew that Dustin Hoffman was almost Deckard? Don't answer that. Especially if you knew.

To bed we go, to bed we go, and Easter will be in the morning.

Which reminds me... I will miss the sad, lardy, milk-chocolate bunnies my dad used to hide under our beds every year. The eyes were the only good part. I'll never forget the year though, when dad bought the bunnies early, and left them in his trunk a little long on a sunny day. As a result, my neatly boxed "hollow milk-chocolate Cottontail Jim" looked as though he'd gone suddenly from zero gravity to the bottom of the Marianis Trench without any protective gear. I only found one eye. The other was probably in the massive melty dent that was his tummy.

Best Easter bunny ever.