The bookstores are infinite

...and so are never full, except in September.

Homework avoidance always goes better with Jake.


Stephanie, you rock. This scan from the Toronto Star is my favorite shot so far from the series snapped in that hotel room at the TIFF. Naturally, it's the one that isn't available online, except in this form. I'll take what I can get.

One of Jake's frequent comments is that he still doesn't know who he really is. It's starting to sink in that this is a major contributor to my attraction. And that's not necessarily a good thing. It's one more example of my bizarre tendency to appreciate in others everything I loathe in myself. In someone Jake's age, with a beyond successful artistic career, that's an honest, even romantic thing to say. But for a woman of 35, who hasn't managed to get past the mild-to-moderate interest stage in any subject, ever, it feels like a well-deserved condemnation of self, a longer way of saying Me? I'm a loser. At least Jake does something creative that he loves right now. Who am I? There are things that I love, and things I love to do, but there is no one thing that has ever stood out to me as my thing. Instead, I do a job to earn money and pay bills. And I feel my self dying a little every day. Everyone I know, since I was in high school, has been asking me when I'm going to write a novel and get rich. Guess what? Not everyone who can write is a writer. There's just not enough in my head for that life, and it's something I've always known but been unable to explain to others.

So instead, I'm trying to find something that at least makes me feel like I'm using my intellect while I fail to blossom as an artist. That's why I'm back in school, studying computer science. That's why I have homework, which I am avoiding this very moment.

By the way, I am totally not as depressed today as all this sounds. I just watched Hal Dobbs make the most tender, beautiful love to Catherine Llewellyn (yes, again, because that never gets old) and I'm convinced that if I can just find myself a math geek who plays the drums, all of this will be a non-issue.

Besides, how could I be blue when Jake's talking to a director? Noah Baumbach, to be precise. I've been meaning to watch The Squid and the Whale since it's been on cable recently, but never got around to it. I guess now I could consider it research. Fingers crossed.

All photos: IHJ.