I seem to recognize your faceHaunting, familiar, yet I can't seemtoplaceit

Cannot find a candle of thought
To light your name
Lifetimes are catching up
With me
All these changes taking place
I wish I'd seen the place
But no one's ever
Taken me
Hearts and thoughts they fade,
Fade away...

I ended up watching Garden State again last night. It was the best option on the myriad of channels available at The Dude Abides Headquarters, a/k/a The Fortress of Solitude.

If you haven't seen it, rent it and watch it. It's an excellent flick. The characters are all really well-written, the dialogue is great and the soundtrack is fantastic.

In fact, it is so good, that when you get to the final credits, you say, "Holy shit! The guy from freaking Scrubs wrote and directed this?!"

Yes, he did.

In a strange way, it reminds me of Good Will Hunting, another favorite of mine that has also been playing a lot on cable lately... an out-of-nowhere, really well-written movie. Nobody gets killed, there is no nudity, no stupid Adam Sandler humor, and there is no action, so if you need that from a movie, don't bother.

The weather here is simply gorgeous. 60's, sunny and warm here in the valey, but the mountains are all still snow-capped and sublime. I really have my fingers crossed that this weather holds out for Carp's visit.

I have an odd pride in this area, and I want everyone who visits it to love it as much as I do.

In fact, I have tried to convince T-Rex & Alison to move here about a hundred times, as well as Ashton and Demi... I am so gung-ho about the area, yet fully aware that most people are internally scrunching their eyebrows and saying to themselves, "Montana?! He's trying to convince me to move to the middle of fucking Montana?!"

Granted if you're a NYC or LA-type who requires the blood vessel-bursting frustration of an hourlong commute each way, smog so thick you can't see a mile, the alluring smells of warm urine and burning garbage in the summer and the soothing sounds of car alarms, garbage trucks, screeching trains and occasional gunfire, well, then this place isn't for you.

I'm a bit strange in that way (among many others).

You know how else I am strange?

I read.

A lot.

Not only that...

I read books.

So many, in fact, that there are piles and piles of books in every little corner of our house.

Nobody reads books anymore.

I think people are convinced they don't have the time, and they only end up reading one book a year, while they are on vacation.

Not me. Oh no, not me.

I've got books everywhere. Next to my bed. Next to the bed in the guest bedroom. On my desk in the den. In the bathroom (of course). In the other bathrooms. In the living room. In my car. Yes, in my car. Don't ask. In my backpack. In my laptop bag. While traveling, I have been known to carry four books, because I fear I will run out of things to read. And I have.

Now, before you say, "Wow, that's great he spends so much time on self-improvement and learning..." Um, no.

I almost exclusively read fiction. Elmore Leonard, Irvine Welsh, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, Carl Hiassen, Nelson DeMille, William Gibson, Raymond Chandler, Neal Stephenson, James Lee Burke... the seedier and the more unredeeming, the better. If it delves into the seedy underbelly and somehow deals with an unsavory criminal drug element, even better yet.

Now, you'e saying, "Holy Shit, what a waste of time. Dude could have learned Mandarin Chinese with all the time he spent reading that crap."

Maybe so. Maybe so.

But I sure do know a lot about criminals, extortion, drunks, various public welfare systems and heroin.

Which is nice.