Biggest fan

This is a good night to have a ceiling fan. In my living room I have one. It's on at top speed now. I can tell it's quite hot still, but it doesn't affect me as much.

Both that and the box fan in my bedroom make soothing sounds. It's technically not white noise, but it can serve a similar purpose.

Bear with me here...

The saying that "Tomorrow is another day," is meant to be hopeful. You can change, you can do something different tomorrow. And it is uplifting.

Of course by that time "tomorrow" is "today." And I don't think I'm alone in feeling more limited today.

I think it would be good to keep a "tomorrow" attitude "today" so that you can act freely, not be locked in. That's something I'd like to do.

Maybe tomorrow.

ETA: Will y'all be around Tuesday morning or Wednesday morning or afternoon? You know who you are. :)

Cutthroat

From Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the American West by Michael Rutter

Sheriff Watson interviewed the vigilantes, all six of whom admitted to the lynching. Perhaps they thought it wouldn't be a problem; hanging a male rustler, after all, was something the law often forgave. The six cattlemen were, moreover, respected ranchers and businessmen, members of the powerful Wyoming Stock Growers Association (WSGA). What they didn't realize, though, was that hanging a woman - no matter what her crime - was almost unthinkable to most in the West. Each of the vigilantes was required to post a $5,000 bond, a hefty sum in that day.

For context, the woman hanged was small but successful rancher Ellen Watson, posthumously known as "Cattle Katie." Her husband Jim Averell was killed as well.

This was a lynching through and through. The cattlemen accused Watson and Averell of cattle rustling. She vehemently denied it. No evidence was presented either way. It's hard to tell if her rivals even believed their own accusations or if this was a thinly veiled power play on their part. If the latter, it was even more morally bankrupt than it sounds.

To make things worse, they got away with it. Thanks to witnesses being intimidated, none in the group were ever convicted. If this incident proved anything, it wasn't anything good.

Blue period

Such a time.

I'm at a time in my life when I'd like to do right by the people I love. But I know I'm not. And I'm hoping to change that, but I'm hoping to change a lot of things. I have to believe that things will get better, but they're taking their time.

Of course it also seems like it doesn't really matter what I want. So I don't know.

Oenology

I have a friend.

No, it's not one of those "see, I have this friend who has this problem" stories. Nor is it entirely a story.

This friend has a few hobbies. Among them is wine making. As far as I know it's just a hobby, in that he hasn't tried making a living at it. It's a competitive field, I'm sure, and you need resources to do it on a certain scale, resources I'd guess he doesn't have.

He's cooked up something that mixes peppercorns and cinnamon into the ferment. I got a taste of it tonight. Tastes a little like a wine that a few Valentine's cinnamon heart candies have been melted into. Not too sweet, though. A tasty versatile drink.

Cocoa channel

I just watched Merci pour le Chocolat, a low-key but intense French/Swiss thriller that's called Nightcap in the English speaking world. Don't know why. "Thanks for the chocolate" sounds plenty catchy to me. It's directed by Claude Chabrol, known as the biggest Hitchcock fan among the French New Wave. It shows. He's actually influenced by Hitch, whereas Brian de Palma has always seemed more influenced by TV. Not that there's anything wrong with that, necessarily.

It's kind of a cat and mouse game played between a young conservatory student; an older musician who might be her father, which for reasons delineated in the film no one can quite know for sure; and his wife, an executive in her family's chocolate business. This last is played by Isabelle Huppert, who's worked in Hollywood and looks a little like a redheaded Jessica Lange.

The camera is always moving, and does so in a conscious, directed way. The color palette is muted, the way European and especially Francophile films tend to be. Even in the poshest scenes you want to check for water damage. But in one scene Huppert turns the light out at night, wide awake, and the space around her remains bright. This is a very Old Hollywood expressionist touch.

7/4

There were, of course, fireworks tonight. In the past, I've often gone down the hill to see them from a closer vantage point. But that requires putting on shoes and socks as well as doing the walking. Tonight that just wasn't going to happen. No, this heat was made for me hanging about barefoot in mangy shorts.

Still did see some of the fireworks. It's just they had to pass a higher threshold first. The ones I saw did look nice.