"This has been my best day ever, Lee Carter."

Yeah, so...sorry. I had a bad week and didn't much feel like talking about it. Barely dragged myself out of bed on Monday to make it to work. Thought I'd shake things up and reinvigorate myself by working at the RIBA Library on Tuesday, but ending up falling on the sidewalk instead. Sore--in both the emotional and physical senses of the word--all week, and just generally angry at London.

Fortunately, I spent some time with friends this weekend, so I'm a little less surly now. Alex and Matt just got a new puppy--SO CUTE--so I went out to Ealing yesterday to check it out. We had great Chinese food for dinner, and watched Son of Rambow while the puppy chewed on its toy. I really liked the movie, but it was nothing like I expected it to be--I think the U.S. trailers for it must have been completely misleading.

About 14 hours after I left Alex and Matt for the night, I met up with Alex again (Matt stayed home to take care of the cuteness that is Chiyo). I think meeting up with Alex should become a trend, as he seems to have good taste in food, and I can use the variety in my diet. A group of his friends were gathering at the Blue Elephant in Fulham Broadway to celebrate a birthday, so I hung out with them for awhile, then headed home for a much-needed nap. On the way home, though, I saw a Diwali poster on a tube station and remembered that today was the Diwali celebration at Trafalgar Square. Couldn't just blow that off, so I stopped by for a while and listened to covers of Bollywood songs. A lot of good Diwali energy, but I was feeling pretty beat, so I came home before the lights came on, etc.

The neighbors have been celebrating Guy Fawkes Day a few weeks early--for the past two weekends, they've been putting on their own light show with fireworks in the garden. I guess I can count that for my Diwali show.

I also spent a good chunk of yesterday just wandering around by myself, trying to learn how to use this new camera (photos available on flickr). I'm not sure I want to spend the time learning everything about it--I'm not in this to become a professional photography. I can see that I'm going to have to invest in a perspective-control lens, though, and learn how to use some of the light-compensation settings. I left everything on AUTO yesterday, and it mostly worked out, but not completely.

Son of Rambow: nice movie. I caught myself laughing out loud a few times, making those weird noises you make when you can't control your hysteria. Some of the accidents the kids had were just too damn funny. Of course, some of the accidents the kids had were just too damn tragic, and at one point, I turned to Alex and said, "Man, that would put me into therapy for ten years. Oh...and there's another ten years added on." Something about the movie felt really familiar, but it wasn't until the second half, when the mother was having a flashback to her childhood that I figured it out. The lifestory of Will is driven by his mother's participation in the Plymouth Brethren. There's a scene in the movie in which the church elders come to have a talk with Will's mother about his behavior, and it put my heart in my throat. Ah...the church elders. I know exactly how this is going to go, how conditional the church's love is, even for a child. I spent most of my teenaged years desperately trying to prevent anyone from sussing out my atheism, because I didn't want to go through one more of those damn meetings. Christian love--at least as I experienced it--is so tenuous. The moment you transgress the church doctrine, you're out of the fold. Even if you repent, they are always watching you, waiting for you to screw up again so they can kick you out for good.