Monday, February 23, 2004

On the voice-mailed suggestion of my friend Topher, I went to see City of God tonight. It's a Brazilian film (in Portuguese, subtitled) about the drug and crime infested life of the Rio de Janeiro slums as told by a boy with a penchant for photography. It's based on a true story and definitely falls in the category of "view-shifting" films.

I finished the book Wicked by Gregory Maguire (which was awesome) and I've now started Angels & Demons by Dan Brown (it's the prequel to The Da Vinci Code). As was the case with The Da Vinci Code, this book is great at keeping things suspenseful, full of enlightening (and easy to digest) symbology and etymology, but with less than stellar dialogue. It reads very fast.

On Saturday, after several cups of coffee and a few hours of late night conversation at the Harbor House, my friend Mike brought up the notion that having perspective on oneself is among the hardest things to do. I agreed as did Ryan and his new girlfriend Sarah. We proceeded to expound our respective narratives on times past (or present) in which we were unable to see outside the box, so to speak, when it came to personal choices within relationships or life direction. As obvious a notion as it was, it led me to discover some of my own cognitive dissonances and consequently examine why and how I choose to mentally justify these various conflicting variables that affect my life.

I've had the most involved, intricate, and realistic dreams in recent memory for the last 4 days. And I remember them vividly, which usually isn't the case. I've become both nervous and excited about falling asleep.