Stretched as thin as phylloh dough this week, barely home, coughing wheezing and red-eyed, strung out on Work, Freelance & Being Sick. Freelance being the nasty deadlined part driving the bus. Which means that my mind was going a 100 mph all week - I could have been writing in here nonstop. Floor around bed is littered with uncomprehensible notes of things I *desperately* needed to write about. We''ll see what makes it.

Firstly, another very happy birthday to BETTE DAVIS. Need to have a shrine for her too--she only gets more important to me as I get older. And I really need to see All This and Heaven Too.

I saw an AMAZING adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles this week (insomnia). Totally absorbing, amazing, fantastical but quietly powerful--never really seen anybody bring quite that much subtlety and feeling and interest to a Sherlock Holmes. Really great. Very un-deerstalker and pipe-smoke. Watson was a revelation--quietly watchful, intelligent--they found a good way to balance his and Holmes' relationship so Watson wasn't the usual surprised buffoon to Holmes' weirdo super-knowledge. Richard E. Grant was pretty perfect as Stapleton and all the period detail was great--the gothick and quiet qualities were so convincing. Even the hound was good, I thought -- I mean, that's the trickiest part, melding the supernational/spiritualist stuff. I loved almost more than anything the moody, expository, measured, scene-setting at the Baskerville home. Nobody has the courage to let that happen these days. Great acting, just really cool.

Have a major soft spot for Hound of the Baskervilles due to a childhood experience in the car with my family, rolling up and down hills somewhere in Pennsylvania at dusk, stone houses on either side, sporadic lights against all the dark green, while we listened to a books-on-tape version of the story. It was perfect.

Frustrating to watch the news. The language in which the immigration "debate" is framing itself is so horrid and mean...hopelessly reductive. Not sure why we're so fast down to the seeds and stems with this. That horrible Tucker Carlson was practically yelling at a minister for his (measured, kindly, law-abiding) opinions then challenging him on how he'd dare have tax-exempt status and say what he does. I think it's DAMN interesting that all the freaked-out Bushies who are sparking this debate end up talking in ways so very hostile to the church. And that dude busted for soliciting children on the web...why is everyone so surprised they give their real names? Even more than the self-protection these guys feel is the compulsion to do it. They are predators in the most self-serving way. I don't know why people can't see the desperate, pitiful quality that goes with being a predator in this--these guy's do anything, can be really stupid, in serving of their compulsions. They are venal and destructive and spreading poison, but they are *dumb*. Tired of baffled anchoroids shaking their heads about it all. Not to mention--have they ever been online?

Saw a little bit about this zoo rebuilding after Hurricane Ivan--most striking thing was watching all the animals run back to their cages when they were brought back after evacuation. Very...Bettelheim? (again) Stockholm Syndrome? Trouble-Tree-ish? (that was my first reaction). I dunno, twas sad and interesting.

Thrilled to have missed Terry McMillan on Oprah this week. What a fucking self-promoting baby she is. The phrase is FOLIE A DEUX, lady.

The real question about Doris Day I've never had answered: WHEN did they put her in braces? There's definitely Ohio Doris, with the big overbite, then the Later Doris, with teeth all fixed. But when? But how?

A beautiful old man: James Garner. He was preternaturally good-lookin when younger, but he makes a fine older guy, too. Love him in Murphy's Romance. Also must note: Gilmore Girls still quite coy (if you ask me) in their use of the guy who plays Luke. I saw a rerun with him sprawled naked on the bed--he ws a felled Adonis. He has the most amazin Grecian body. It's all kind of coy, because his character is this bah-humbug grunt, and despite the fact that Lorelai's now dating him, their still not inside to his soft center. So instead you're like...does she see what's in bed next to her? I'd call it refreshingly non looks-oriented, except it seems kind of sexist, somehow. At least oblivious.

My voice still shot. Interesting parallel is that now in addition to talking badly, I *sing* badly in whole new ways. Now when I attempt something beyond me, the sound is like one of those superannuated old chorines whose vibrato you can drive a truck through--I was never able to imitate them before.

I've never been to a Cracker Barrel, dammit. Missing that part of the mittelAmerikan experience. I want to go.