* I am bubbling over with minutiae, awash with the urgency of the unimportant. Mostly scribbled notes from watching TCM the last 2/3 weeks.

* I am also bawling my way through the end of West Side Story for the 600th time. I was struck (7% of my brain) this time by--while excruciating when it happens--what a good plot point it is that Anita is the one who tells the Jets to tell Tony Maria is dead. Like...it's better than Shakespeare, yo. Makes more emotional sense than the vagaries of a friar's poison. There is such music in some of the ending dialogue (not just lyrics), esp. the "How many bullets, Chino" line. Golly. Bawl bawl. And the scene at the gym...Russ Tamblyn's just the most chic dapper dude, ever. Love watching him tumble in his tie.

* Speaking of very emotional Bernstein music that my parents, while the ones who introduced me to the stuff would still find me a sap for still seeking it out, I have decided I have to own a copy of Mass. Dopey and cheezball but very beautiful musically despite itself. I have been reading up on the recordings and there's really only one since the one I grew up on, the one with Alan Titus as the celebrant (oh BOY are people attached to him in that role...tis interesting--and me too). You could say this piece of music didn't age well, or dates itself too much--but you can't. It's still there.

* My lipstick drawer is a sea of bad 90s choices of bright, Paloma Picasso reds (I mean, in addition to the awful free-when-you-buy detritus) that should have been exactly medium Marilyn red but ending up being on my skin....ORANGE. I feel grateful to know what I have to do now to achieve that red, what looks good, and yet I don't throw the others away. Why? They are a weird map. And if I melted them all down...you know it wouldn't be a majick thing. Just kinda bleh.

* I'm back on The Gilmore Girls. I'm gonna ride it out, if nothing else. I think I took this break, really (without realizing) to stretch and rest up for what promises to be a trying end of season.

* Holly Hunter is the female Richard Dreyfuss of her generation. She is almost unbearably annoying in films like Broadcast News, no matter what she does. Just...annoying.

* Doris Day's big word: "marvelous." BTW, I finally saw Down With Love, and there is something Bubbling. If nothing else, a way to describe what I like about DD, which is an almost impossible thing to pin down.

* TCM's "The Essentials": much better with Molly Haskell now too. She's great.

* I discovered 10 seconds of The Runaway Bride I liked.

* The Marx Bros. marathon on TCM was incredibly fun. I found myself enjoying Horse Feathers more than I expected, esp. the songs. Also got to hear one of my fav Marx lines in Night at the Opera (next to ""Your eyes, your eyes, they shine like the pants of a blue serge suit" from Cocoanuts): [to a guy dressed as Pagliacci] "Can you sleep on your stomach with such big buttons on your pajamas?"

* The Frontline narrator is doing commercial voiceovers. (!) For a car or something. (!!) I dunno if he's done it before, but I was shocked as hell. As my friend JJWF used to say, there's something about him that would make you believe anything he said.

* The worst thing about Friends other than...Friends? Their horrible "titles." "The One Where Ross [whatevers]." It fits, but it's awful.