I was imaged twice today. Well, more than that, actually, but on two separate occasions. First thing this morning I had some X-rays taken to help diagnose lower back pain. Apparently my spine’s fine, it’s just a muscle that’s ornery. Once upon a time I used to work around X-rays all the time, so I was more hesitant to have a medical image taken. Not so much any more.
Yesterday I spent my entire lunch break on the phone with Kim Morgan, a reporter from the Houston Chronicle. She saw the article in the local newspaper and decided to pick up the story that her paper. As it turns out, we’re both originally from Canada, so we had that to talk about to break the ice at first. Today the newspaper’s photographer met me at the house and took a dozen or more pictures of me in my office to accompany the article. I recognized him from the previous time he shot me for the newspaper, five years ago. I’m not very comfortable in front of a camera (at least look like you’re happy, he said to me at one point!) so I’ll be curious to see which shot gets used and how much of a doofus I look like in it.
About a decade ago I joined the local Writers’ Guild (I always feel like I need an apostrophe there, but a lot of organizations omit it) and even served as the president for one year. The guild held annual conferences, bringing in agents and editors from NY as well as local writers of repute, including Bill Crider and Joe R. Lansdale. One of the people I met through the guild was one of their success stories — Colleen Thompson, a school teacher who met her agent through one of the guild’s conferences, if I remember the story correctly. Colleen saw the article in the newspaper last week and asked me if I’d do a Q&A for her writer’s blog. I agreed, and the results are up today at Boxing the Octopus.
Last night’s NCIS seemed a little strange for the first fifteen minutes or so. Mostly it was McGee, I think, who seemed to be out of character. It was like they had a different writer for the episode. That and the fact that the actor seems to be losing a lot of weight, so he is physically different as well. I always enjoy the sparring between Gibbs and the FBI agent played by Hill Street Blues alumni Joe Spano.
We’re supposed to get some freezing weather again these next couple of days. Might get sleet here and snow or freezing rain a few dozen miles to the north of us.
What to make of Lost this week?
At the point where Dogen told Jack that he was going to have to convince Sayid to take the pill (cut to commercial), I found myself thinking: what a dilemma. On TV shows like this, characters sometimes intuit what they’re supposed to do. They simply have a gut feeling and act on it. What would Jack’s gut tell him to do, and would he be right? Instead, Jack came up with a gutsy way of getting the others to tell him more. Well played.
I’m not sure I would have hung onto the stolen taxi as long as Kate did, but she didn’t really have much choice. It’s not like you can stroll around L.A. and get very far, and she’s not exactly a car thief. Kudos to the taxi driver for spotting his chance to escape and taking it! The guy who helped Kate get her cuffs off looked familiar. Have we seen him before on Lost or is it just a familiar actor? Did I notice a momentary frisson when Kate saw Jack outside the airport terminal? A brief almost-déjà-vu? I’m regularly reminded of Jake in the Dark Tower series whose mind ricocheted with two time lines, the one he was living through and the one he should have been living through. At first I thought it would be Jack who she cornered in the hospital, but pulling Ethan out of the hat was a brilliant stroke, I thought. Of course it should be Ethan who tends to the pregnant Claire.
And then there’s feral Claire cum Rousseau. The implication from Dogen’s statement is that Claire died. Certainly possible, but we’re not yet buying everything the crafty leader has to say, are we? After all, I don’t think Rousseau’s shipmates all died before becoming infected–though it’s possible, I suppose. The way Jin leapt around in time he may have missed some significant incidents.
How far as Sawyer come in the past three years? Con man turned romantic, tragic hero. Slacker turned domestic. Kicking himself for asking Juliet to stay on the island just a couple of weeks with him. What’s to become of him now?
It wasn’t exactly an ohmigod episode, but it was a solid episode. I like the direction of Season Six. I’m afraid it’s going to be over all too soon.
