About Those 500 Words…

My promise to write 500 words a day has, like so many of my other promises, been broken. I have no excuses aside from having serious balance issues between work/life/writing. Simply put – I am having a hard time getting the creative motor running.

I think part of my trouble has been a poor diet and not enough exercise. I'm rectifying the exercise issue by pumping out 3 miles a day on the treadmill during my work lunch hour…except for today when I only ran 2.67 miles because my goddamn hamstrings decided to seize up. My hamstring troubles are well-documented, and it doesn't matter if I'm hydrated, dehydrated, taking fistfuls of vitamins and supplements, stretching or not stretching, my hammies are a nightmare. My last boss, an avid runner, told me she thinks the strength between my quads and my hamstrings is way out of whack…and she is probably correct. The problem is that if I even think about doing leg curls my hamstrings go tighter than a rusty piano string. So, leg curls are out…in are deadlifts with 40 lb dumbbells. Anything over 40 lbs and my lower back gives out. I have problems, man, serious problems. The deadlifts have not paid any dividends as I am sitting gingerly sitting in my office chair, trying not to move too suddenly or I'll cramp up. It is a tortured existence…

Diet wise I have been trying…but anyone with kids can attest how hard it can be to stick to a diet plan when you have to cook different meals for finicky eaters. My kids are carbotarians – they would live on nothing but bread, water, pasta, and fruit if I let them. Hmmm, the youngest one does love bacon though…the only child to stray off the chicken nugget reservation. Anyway, trying to appease them and cook for myself and the better half is easier said than done. Those of you that are thinking, 'just make the kids eat what you cook' either do not have kids or do not mind the ear-splitting wails that come from kids that are hungry but are on a ridiculous hunger strike. We've tried to get Maddy to try different foods and it wasn't pretty. I've seen people bite into habanero peppers with more reckless abandon than Maddy trying something as exotic as mashed potatoes. She has completely dug in to her food habits…and it's not like she doesn't eat healthy as she will eat her body weight in fresh fruit if we let her…but damn it all, at some point she is going to have to try pasta with marinara sauce! Jossy takes queues from Maddy, but with the added hurdle of her possessing Wolverine's mutant sense of smell. If anything offends her olfactory then we can pretty much count on her refusing to eat until whatever she smells is removed from a 50 foot radius beginning at her nostrils. Take all of that into consideration and imagine cooking dinner and trying to avoid carbs…it's damn near impossible unless I make scrambled eggs every night, which 2 of the 3 kids like, the other thinks they smell funny and will demand pancakes. Good times…

Speaking of good times, I watched a couple of movies this weekend. The first was 'Warrior', a much better film than I anticipated, but one that ran a little long…and even running long I felt like a lot of details were glossed over, mainly the younger brother's motivation to do some of the things he did leading up to him showing up at his father's doorstep. We are shown a lot of flashbacks and newsreel footage, but his relationship with a Marine buddies wife and his contribution to her being in the state she is in are barely even alluded to. Nick Nolte was very good as the formerly abusive likkered up father, but why his relationship is strained with his older son is never explained…something happened, but we are never told what. The fight scenes were visceral and staged well, and I've watched enough MMA to know to never judge a fighter by physical appearance. The director and fight choreographer did a fantastic job of showing how a physically overmatched fighter could defeat an opponent with strategy and technique. 'Warrior' as a film gets a solid 'B' as a movie but the title gets an 'F' – the title alone almost kept me away, a co-worker recommended it after over hearing me say I liked 'Red Belt'.

The second film we watched was 'Moneyball', which is wildly overrated…and I'm really not sure why Brad Pitt is being mentioned as an Oscar contender for best actor – he simply played Brad Pitt with John Edward's Prell girl hair. Brad Pitt is incapable of playing anyone but Brad Pitt these days. He just doesn't have the acting chops he displayed in 'Seven' and 'Fight Club'. He's just Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane as himself, which is too bad as he once displayed a hint of having some range. No more! The buzz surrounding Jonah Hill as an Oscar hopeful is just as misplaced…he plays the same character he always plays, but in a Men's Werehouse suit and glasses. The film only really crackled with life when Brad Pitt shared the screen with Phillip Seymour Hoffman, quite possibly the best character actor in the business. Hoffman captures the gruff, dour, grumpy baseball manager archetype perfectly. There were too many scenes of Brad Pitt just driving around and reflecting on his life, which did serve to underline the point that even the greatest prospects flame out, but these scenes meandered too long and killed momentum. My favorite part of the movie was the song Billy Beane's recorded for him…and I must have gotten some dust in my eye or my contact was bothering me 'cause it got a little misty in the TV room during that part of the movie (look, I make no apologies for being a total sucker for movies that play on father/daughter dynamics…I have three daughters, sue me if I get a little choked up). I was hoping 'Moneyball' would move at the same clip as 'The Social Network', but like baseball it was too slow to get out of its own way…a 'C' film at best.

Currently, I'm sitting in my office and waiting for the rest of the Snowpocylpse to hit the Greater Seattle Area. We are due for more snow and then snow with damaging winds and then rain with 'urban flooding', a phrase that just kind of kills me…I think I have hit 500 words for this post though, so I've got that going for me. Stay warm!