A Sure Sign

"Your kitchen looks like a couple of geniuses live here."

-James Fauvell, on our hellhole of a kitchen

Fat Man Moments

Last Friday, when "Captivated" was finally up and my sanity was gradually returning, I took a twenty-minute walk down 2nd Street towards the canal. It was a one-block walk down a dead-end street, but it was enough. Passing the open bay of a garage, I saw a fat man sitting in front of a giant fan, beside an old car. It was just about dusk, and he was practically immobile. I turned around at the canal, and as I passed the garage again, the man had stood up and was hosing down the car.

Maybe it was my mood, but in that moment, this pair of images was odd, funny, poignant, and rich with meaning. And I thought, The world is full of beauty and humor and pathos and strangeness, and I sit all day in front of a computer trying mightily to contrive exactly those things. And I felt like a bit of a fool.

Last night, sitting on the roof after the "Script 2" shoot, I mentioned this moment to Mike, and he saw it a little differently. "That's the beauty of it," he said. "You exhaust yourself all week until you have nothing left. You're empty. And then you take a twenty-minute walk, and that's all it takes to fill you up again."

He's got a point. What a great job we have.

An Unwise Combination

"It remains to be seen what will happen with this film, because it involves so many children and so many alligators."

-John Arthur Kelly, cinematographer, on a film he turned down

Vehicular Mailslaughter

This afternoon I walked up to Smith Street to mail a $7 check to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Over the years, I have been a major financial supporter of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, mostly through the medium of speeding tickets, but in this case, I was making a tax payment. I did a little acting-for-hire in Northampton last summer, and despite the fact that a tax payment had already been deducted (sorry, "withheld") from my paycheck, the Commonwealth apparently felt that I had not quite paid my debt to it. Hence the $7 check.

Anyway, I had reached Smith Street and was waiting to cross the street to the mailbox on the other side when the envelope, which I had tucked under my arm, came loose and wafted into the rain-soaked street, where it was immediately run over.

I waited for the traffic to let up, picked up the envelope, and deposited as planned into the mailbox.

As always, Massachusetts, it was a pleasure doing business with you.

An Observed Paradox

We are much more likely to care about people's personal troubles if they are not the sort of people who bore us with their personal troubles.

A Totally Neutral Observation

There's something in Rachel McAdams's eyes that seems to dare the world to be as good as she knows it can be – but she's not holding her breath.

A Vindication of Prejudice

To live without prejudice is to live without expectation.

To live without expectation is to live without surprises.

To live without surprises is hardly to live at all.

Note to Self

If I cry, it's not that I'm not happy; it's just because I'm sad.

A Perfect Moment

It's a lovely May Sunday in Manhattan, and I'm walking up Central Park West, when I see a mother and her son – probably six – coming slowly towards me. The boy is eating a blue popsicle; as I watch, it falls off its stick and onto the ground. He looks down at the sullied blue ice, then up at his mother, as if uncertain how he should react.

At this point, I am directly alongside them. It is the only moment when I am close enough to overhear their conversation.

"There's always tomorrow," says the mother.

I swear to God.