A Multimedia Monday post... in which, I still exist.

Hello.

Long time, no see.  I know.  But I still exist.  I promise!  And I'm still on this long journey of self-care.

I went from vacation preparation, to beautiful vacation, to a coldy-flu plague.  I was all refreshed from Palm Springs, and feeling ready to be present here on the blog... but let me tell you, this grippe had a grip on me for almost a week.  I threw my hands up and decided just to rest and try to recover my strenghth.

One thing I've noticed this year is that I face some serious some food challenges while I'm sick.  I'll talk more about this soon, but the good news is that as my energy grows, so does my will to cook for myself.  I think my stomach is feeling better as a result, as much as my sinuses feel better than they did last week.  I am very much looking forward to tomorrow, which will be my first day back at Slimmons since I left for vacation.

It's Monday, so that means it's time for some Short Cuts.

• While I was sick last week, I spent a lot of time staring blankly at the watching tv.  I learned the following:
• Even if I am only half-watching Toy Story 3, when Andy plays with his toys one last time, I will still be racked with the equivalent amount of sobs as I did upon first viewing.
• Trick 'R Treat is (as per my friend's recommendation) a fun and playful horror romp worth watching.  The horror script that Tom and I have been developing will have a different approach, but I hope it will capture the same sense of glee.
• The Parenthood TV series is underrated, and I should have listened to my friends Sara L. and Rena W. when they raved about it.
• I can't make it all the way through Stephen King's Thinner without feeling sick and turning it off.  It wasn't the rapid weight loss or the mocking of fat people or the unhealthy dieting or even the depiction of food addiction that bothered me.  It was the way that the film - and many films - portray binge-eating. Seriously. I have binged.  I know what it looks - and feels - like.  It's not like that.  It's less disgusting, and far more sad.  And geez- how many Multimedia Monday posts will it take for me to listen to myself - I ought to finish Yoga For Fat Girls, which includes a character who suffers from binging, which I hope to portray honestly and without cruelty toward the character.

In movie marketing news, I keep bumping into various ads for Adam Sandler's upcoming comedy, Jack & Jill - in which he plays a man and his twin sister.  And every time I see anything to promote the movie, I can't help but think of Funny People.

Did you see Funny People?  Or, more specifically, did you see the Funny People websites?  Perhaps some of you don't know that in a past life, I was a movie marketing interactive producer, which essentially means that I helped to conceive and (manage teams who) create movie websites.

One of the sites I produced was a portfolio for Sandler's character, George Simmons -- a past-his-prime actor who has made a lot of zany high-concept comedies. Featuring titles like Merman, Dog's Best Friend, and My Best Friend Is A Robot.  (If you read the reviews on that website, you might see some interesting fake critics named, such as the formidable Brian Powers and the remarkable Michelle Vander Missen... who happen to be my siblings. Ah, the little joys of marketing.)

Anyway, all I can think whenever I see that Jack & Jill poster is...

And in movie marketing old-news, there are bus ads all over town for this season's Project Runway, which (I think?) is about to end.  Now, don't me wrong: I love Tim Gunn's catchphrase, "make it work."  But this particular one-sheet design for demonstrates just how important it is to treat marketing copy carefully.

Yeah, it's clever and visually interesting to tuck little words into bigger ones.  But when you're doing that, you have to make sure you're not turning the phrase into something else entirely.  Whenever I drive past this one-sheet, I don't see the "it."  I see "MAKE WORK."  Which is regional slang akin to "busy-work," or work undertaken not for the purpose of completing a task, but for the purpose of keeping you busy.  This poster is telling you - though I don't think it intends to - that Tim Gunn appears on Project Runway not because he wants to be there, but merely to make him seem busy and engaged.

The moral of the story here is that one little word... be it "it," or "no," or "thanks"... can make all of the difference.  And I'll end today with four little words. I apologize for not being here to tell them to you regularly the last few weeks.  But I've had them in my heart, nonethless.