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hand written letters For the second day in a row, I fell asleep before I uploaded an entry. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Then later in the afternoon when I went to get my mail, I found an envelope with familiar handwriting on it. Even though I hadn't seen the writing in a year, I still knew who had sent me the letter. It was from Siobhan and it made my day that much better. Even though her online journal is down at the moment, she writes letters through the summer to let people know what she is doing. I'm not sure how many people besides myself get these letters, but I certainly appreciate them. Being able to hold and read these letters makes the connection between the writer and the reader that much stronger. I often wonder how many people write actual letters to friends and family any more. From what I can tell it seems to be what people call a lost art. So often people can't find the time to even make a simple phone call let alone put a pen to paper to express a thought. Now here is someone that I have never met who is willing to send something so personal and it really seems special to me. Oh, the actual pages that make up the letter might be photocopied, but that doesn't take away from the emotional value of the words. Then perhaps in an effort to offset the mass production value of the photocopies, she placed them in a hand made envelope that looked wonderful. To be more precise she wrapped them in a photo of what looks to be an ancient building. From what I can tell this photo had a previous life as a page in Smithsonian magazine. I have always considered her a much better journal writer than me. Her small phrases are so much more descriptive and imaginative than mine and the amount of emotional impact that she can convey in a handful of words always amazes me. I would hope that I have gotten better with my journal since I started, but I can't say. ... Back on Tuesday, I had rented four movies to watch throughout the week or whenever I found the time. Somehow I thought that I was being clever by planning ahead, but it didn't work out that smoothly. Rather than watching a new movie a night, what happened instead is that the movies sat on the floor unwatched for most of the week. In fact it's taken me the past three days to sit through just one of the movies. I could never seem to find the time or inclination to sit for an hour or two. At random I picked A Portrait of a Lady with Nicole Kidman and John Malkovich to watch first. From past experience I've found that Malkovich usually can hold my attention and I wanted to see what Kidman could do in a period drama. Unfortunately watching the movie in bits and pieces left me very confused and I have to say that most of the plot was a mystery to me. I can honestly say that I have very little idea of what happened in the movie and not having read the Henry James novel didn't help either. He falls into that category of famous author whose books I know but have never read. Maybe I'll rent it again some other time to see what if anything I may have missed. The second movie I watched was another period drama called Plunkett and MacLeane with Robert Carlyle and Jonny Lee Miller, both of whom were great in Trainspotting. It was odd seeing Begbie and Sick Boy wearing eighteenth century clothes and talking with English accents, but I guess that this says something for their acting ability. They were the characters rather than themselves. Unlike the other movie, I managed to watch this in one sitting and it wasn't bad. I have no idea how much of it was historically accurate, but I thought that it was entertaining and I guess that's all that matters in the end. Of course having Liv Tyler play the love interest made the movie even better for me. Those lips look so much better on her than they do on her father.
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