I was working on my schedule for the next few months and I almost had a heart attack.
Next week: New York City for family thing
Weekend after: New York City for NYPL reception
Last week in March: Boston for the NEC Conference
Middle of April: WRW Retreat at Harper’s Ferry
Early May: SSG, the Paperback, releases
Mid-May: Tampa, Florida, to speak at TARA
Late May: Launch of Everything I Needed to Know… in Martha’s Vineyard
Mid June: Northern California for A Wedding Sailor Boy is In
Late June: Under the Rose releases
Mid July: Southern California for another Wedding that I am In
August: SSG3 due
Is it any wonder I’m skipping RWA Nationals this year?
In other news, I’m finding that Sailor Boy and I are experiencing a noticeable disconnect between the Netflix people that we are the Netflix people that we want to be, a phenomenon first noticed by one of my very best friends and former college roommate, but now popularized by articles on Slate and the like. The Netflix person that I want to be watches a lot of foreign films and dramas and independent artsy fartsy movies. The Netflix person that I am wants TV shows and comedies and lets these artsy flicks get to the top of her queue and then doesn’t watch them for like, weeks. Because I want to be the person that watches them, I don’t send them back, but in the meantime, I’m repeatedly watching Bridget Jones’s Diary or old episodes of The West Wing or Buffy. Right now, we have The Station Agent, Sex and Lucia, and The Bicycle Thief sitting in their little Netflix envelopes, mocking our plebian tastes while SB catches up on Heroes on NBC.com, and we try to understand the dialogue in Life on Mars. (We also have the last disc of Battlestar Galactica, Season One, but I’m putting it off as long as possible.)
Anyone else do this?
25 Comments
March 8, 2007 at 1:46 pm
Ha – too funny.
I have ‘Shattered Glass’ gathering dust while I choose to re-watch episodes of Black Books.
You should definitely pop in The Station Agent – excellent movie.
March 8, 2007 at 2:02 pm
you see, I approached netflix as an outlet to watch whatever you want, without pretenses. Like, you can watch all 5 seasons of Buffy, and you don’t have to deal with the guy at the counter of the video store rolling his eyes since you have rented 2 seasons within 2 weeks.
You can rent “Bride of Chucky” and nobody ever needs to know. And keeping it out for three weeks? Well, that surely wasn’t so that you could watch it five times.
Let Netflix be your guilty pleasure
March 8, 2007 at 2:06 pm
I happen to think Bride of Chucky is rather brilliant…
I’m the last person to be embarrassed by what the video store clerk thinks of me. The thing about Netflix is hat there are so many things AVAILABLE that aren’t at your local video store. I get sucked in. I do want to have seen the Bicycle Thief. I just don’t want to sit down after a long day and watch it. But there are things that I’d never be watching — say, the Metallica Documentary, SOME KIND OF MONSTER, which is frankly amazing — had I not had Netflix.
March 8, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Dude – so funny you say that because we’re the same way! My boyfriend wants to watch all the noir flicks and they’ve been gethering dust since we moved into our new house! Meanwhile, on the weekend we pay to watch stupid cheesy movies on demand (which freeze up all the time). I’ve instituted a rule that if the movie isn’t watched within 2 weeks then it goes back. Last weekend was the first weekend we’d watch a Netflix movie in a looong time (Zombi2).
Of course, it’s also been a while since we’ve updated the queue. Finally I went in there and listed all these truly cheesy girlie high school movies which spurred my boyfriend to do some updated of his own
Of course, what I really need to be doing is writing… sigh…
March 8, 2007 at 2:29 pm
I’m embarrassed to say I don’t subscribe to netflix. And as a huge movie buff, I don’t know why that is. I’m so ashamed.
Also, you freaked me out again, Diana!! This morning as I was getting ready for work I was trying to decide on a TT topic (which I still have not done) and was thinking about doing a list of my favorite spots in the world. And #1 was going to be a spot in Harpers Ferry. Then I started thinking about the area and everything I love about it and all the memories I have from there (which is just down the road from where I grew up)… and then I check out your blog and you mention it. I’m so jealous you’re going to be there.
March 8, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Yes, we do that, Diana! My problem is wanting to see these movies with heavy, dark themes, but when they arrive in the mail, I can’t think about watching something that may be so depressing.
Right now, I have “The Child” sitting on top of my DVD player. I really want to watch it, as it got fantastic reviews, but I know I will probably cry while watching it…hard to confront.
There have been a few movies that sat on our TV for months, unwatched. Eventually, I just shipped them back.
By the way, I used to turn on the subtitles every now and again when watching “Life On Mars” on BBCA this past summer. Some of them talk like they have marbles in their mouths!
March 8, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Annie, I’m so confused. I visited your blog last night and thought I already saw you put your TT up?
The retreat is at Hill House. It’s supposed to be quite the experience. I’ve never been before, though I did spend a lot of time in WV as a child.
March 8, 2007 at 2:39 pm
kristin, I wish we had subtitles. Someone has been lending us her DVRs, so we just have what they recorded…
I usually don’t have a problem understanding the brits (lord knows I made it through Full Monty without difficulty) but I’m getting the impression that a lot of it is the brit equivalent of seventies slang — amusing the same way watching That Seventies Show is amusing where they say “groovy” and stuff, and so it’s DOUBLY confusing to me. It’s not just understanding Brit slang, it’s understanding Brit slang from three decades back, said for humorous effect. But I may be wrong about that.
March 8, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Nope, TT still isn’t up. I’m such a procrastinator. You getting me confused with your other beachbum fans?
March 8, 2007 at 3:25 pm
LOL, Annie, darling, you’re my only beach bum fan.
I figured it out. I’d clicked over from another TT link (since I apparently lost your link on the sidebar during the redesign — must fix that) and it sent me right to your last TT.
March 8, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I don’t get it. What’s wrong with watching Bridget Jones’ Diary a hundred times? I like to just forward to my two favorite Colin Firth scenes: after the party, when he tells her he likes her just as she is (swoon!), and when he’s at her apartment cooking birthday dinner, and he makes that little move to straighten his tie as her friends come in, and he smiles that special Colin smile.
Same reason I watch my two favorite scenes in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice: the wet shirt scene (of course) and that moment when Georgia is playing the piano, and Darcy and Elizabeth share a secret smile. Sigh . . .
As for your schedule, woo-hoo! You’re a real live working writer! How cool is that?
March 8, 2007 at 3:36 pm
that moment when Georgia is playing the piano, and Darcy and Elizabeth share a secret smile.
That’s the one that gets the most play on my DVD, too. Also, I like the first proposal scene. Call me crazy, but there’s that moment when Lizzie lays into him about being a gentleman where his eyes kind of… *twitch* and you know she got in a critical hit. So. Good.
Am I alone in thinking that the Keira Knightley version doesn’t come close to stacking up?
Not that I think there is anything wrong with watching BJD a billion times, but I am paying for Netflix, and there are so many other things on my queue I need to see! Like, um, The Princess Diaries. And Sky High. And In Her Shoes.
March 8, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Sometimes it’s best not to list the schedule out like that.
You’re going to be busy.
We just cancelled all our premiums channels on our satellite because we weren’t watching the movies. Now we need to join Netflix, but I can already tell you all we’ll get is cheesy movies *g*
March 8, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I still must buy the BBC Pride & Prejudice, just so that I can watch moments like that.
{Colin Firth sigh}
And no, the Keira Knightley one was nowhere near. I have no desire to ever watch it again, whereas I could watch the BBC one over and over. And over.
March 8, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Oo, Diana, pop in Sky High next for sure. SUCH a good time at the movies.
No, Keira wasn’t as good as the BBC Lizzie, but she did much better than I expected. I know someone who can’t bear her long canines–ruins any movie she’s in.
I definitely liked the latest Darcy. Of course no one can match Colin Firth, but the new one came awfully close. When he’s walking across the field at the end, his coat billowing out, those long strong confident strides . . . yeah. I’ll take that.
March 8, 2007 at 4:51 pm
See, and I thought they were trying to turn him too much into Heathcliff. All that walking around in the fog, in the rain, in the middle of the night…. might have made a better match for marianne than lizzie, yeah?
When I try to think of ANY Austen hero who would pull that kind of stunt (the heroes, not the rakes) the closest I can come up with is Wentworth, and only when he’s at his ABSOLUTE worst, and because he’s totally used to the elements. I imagine he did something like that the night Anne turned him down, before he ran away to sea.
I mean, for all that’s made of Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth, it doesn’t hold a candle to “you pierce my soul.”
March 8, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Ah yes, I’d nearly forgotten Wentworth’s letter.
“A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father’s house this evening or never.”
Ahhh. The BBC version of that movie’s not bad either, even though it’s not Colin Firth.
And yes, I thought the modern P&P was way too Heathcliff-y too. I rolled my eyes at the ending.
March 8, 2007 at 6:33 pm
OMG – we aspire to be the same netflix person. but the truth is, I’d much rather just watch Star Wars for the 500th time (my almost 2 year old can say “Wookie!” I’m so proud) on HBO than watch that award winning, thought provoking, but bound to be depressing as hell movie.
And wow, what a schedule! Makes me exhausted just looking at it…
and aren’t you like, planning a wedding of your own amidst all this craziness??
March 8, 2007 at 6:53 pm
I’m not going to RWA either. I’ll prolly be in Japan.
As far as Netflix goes, I don’t. I quit a long while back because I wasn’t watching *anything* I was getting. I just didn’t have the time. Instead I get just about every channel available which means that the guys get to watch all their sports and I can sneak in the occasional DVR’d movie or Masterpiece Theatre.
As for indie and foreign movies that are worth watching, if you haven’t seen it, definitely put The Horseman on the Roof in your queue. It’s a French film, a historical that features Olivier Martinez. :sigh: :sigh: :sigh:
March 8, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I thought I’d had enough Foreign/Literary Cinema in school (yes Bicycle Thief, yes French New Wave, yes strange Iranian film about a rug and African film that ends with people spitting on the main character) but now that I think about it, it was having Samurai II for two months that convinced me to end the Netflix.
But I am thinking of joining again to rent things I can’t find elsewhere.
March 8, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I canceled my Netflix account. I didn’t have time to watch the movies. As it is, I barely have time to eat and sleep.
March 8, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Watch Sex and Lucia. Watch it. Just do.
March 9, 2007 at 8:17 pm
That stinks you aren’t coming to Nationals! You’ll be missed!
Steph~
March 10, 2007 at 7:02 pm
arn’t u getting married 2?
March 10, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Yes, I am getting married, but not until late late this year. Plenty of time to stress about that later!