. . . don't let us get old.

don't let us get stupid or right . . .

It came.

My eyes.

Hopefully, tomorrow, I won't rub them once all day.

It's here, on the web, finally, the trailer.

(Let me know if that link fails.)

It's beautiful. And moving. And . . .

God, isn't it just a little frustrating that the trailer for a love story between two men features two kisses and both of them are man on woman?

I'm not dissing the studio here: I gave up long ago on the tactic of shoving things into faces in a way that would just make them look away. But God. Pretty telling about how far we've come, huh?

As long as the movie doesn't cop out. I didn't wait this long for a gay love story just to watch them hug a lot, as in that big beautiful but idiotic mess Alexander.

If in doubt, write.

Feeling so damn grumpy I felt the need to write about it this morning and what do you know. Not exactly tranquility, but a whole lot better.

Lunch helped too, but I needed a small taste of accomplishment first. And contentment.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Perhaps you noticed my failure to misspell a single word in my last post.

If you've been here before, you may well think me retarded. I can spell moderately well when I concentrate, which is not even rarely on a first past--I'm stunned by the typos I know perfectly well how to spell on even a quick proof.

But I made a decision way back when I started this blog, that it was a freedom zone where I didn't have to feel weighted down by editing or even copy-editing. I make look like a dumbass, but I was free to just run with my thoughts, without all the psychic weight that crap bears down on me.

(Really. You'd be surprised. When you write for a living, all the overhead can grow wearisome. At least to some of us.)

And yes, pasting it into Word, spellchecking and pasting back was too much of a bother. At least with the added wrinkle that Word's embedded formatting screwed everything up over here, so I'd have to paste to word, spellcheck, past to Wordpad, paste back here, switch to source-code mode, remove the small-font command even Wordpad added at the start and end, switch back to WYSIWYG mode, and then proceed as usual. Yes, that was too much trouble for every post. See how long you'd keep it up.

Of course a decent blog tool would take care of most of that with a spellcheck, but I don't use a decent tool, I use Radio Userland, which I'm stuck with as long as I stick with Salon.

(I do have an escape strategy in mind, but not till I get myself an intern, which I was hoping would have happened by now.)

Hennyway. That was the corner I was painted into.

Until this morning.

A few weeks ago I got a new computer, and as I got around to downloading the Google toolbar Monday, I noticed a new feature. Spellcheck for web forms.

I no longer have to wait for Userland to add the most basic, obvious tool to this annoying little window I type into. Google has finally invented a universal one for any web window I might have open.

(In retrospect, I'm betting someone else invented this a long time ago, but nobody that brought it to my attention. Microsoft certainly didn't build one into their browser, unless they've been keeping it a secret.)

So now, assuming I remember to actually hit the button, these entries will be cleansed.

Thanks, Google. I love you even more.

I also love the idea of GoogleTalk, which I discovered at the same time, though I've yet to see it in operation, because for now it only works with other people set up on gmail (their extraordinary and yes, free email service).

But supposedly it will provide me free phone service over the web. I tried Yahoo's version once, and it was free, though it kept cutting off the first word of everything the guy it said. I sure as hell talk a lot, though, and mostly with my friends who are mostly scattered all over creation, so I sure could use a free service. Especially for my friend in Rome, who always needs a good deal of encouragement, and provides the same in return.

Just wish I had bought a little bit of your stock. (Which could also be stated as: I wish I had had a little money to buy your stock with when I thought it was still cheap under $100.)

(If you haven't been following, it broke $300 a few days ago. But I did manage to sock a small bit of money into a China fund that's been doing quite nicely.)

And I was sure this one had such promise.

Been grumpy all week, but went to bed early last night, and woke up rested and refreshed. 6:20 a.m., my early post-dawn wake-up, typically followed by a quick pee, another two hours of sleep and I'm good to go.

Typically. Not today.

Rested and refreshed for 6:20, not at all ready for the day.

Thought I would brush it off quickly, but it's a bit past noon and haven't shaken the grumpiness for a moment. I can feel the scowl on my face this very minute, and I really resent it there. Which induces a nasty little self-perpetuating problem. Especially since it keeps screaming, You're not going to write shit in this mood! and that can easily grumpify me on the best of mornings.

Never did get back to sleep. I guess that's the problem.

One slightly short night of sleep doesn't seem to explain it all though.

So many nagging little things to take care of. (I got the damn groceries last night, thought that was going to help.

Maybe I'll be eating better now. My back is almost healed again, and it finally rained a little last night, so maybe my allergies would start waning. Those were supposed to help.

I think the back injury--and the pulled muscles before it--may be to blame. Barely been to the gym or onto the bike at all the past two months. Latest setback was a scary fall on the stairs early last week. Hit my back hard, couldn't even get up at first. Could barely walk the next day.

(The spill was coincidental to today's CT scan, though the impact of the fall may well go back to the same cause: busted vertebra 20 years ago.)

So I've been icing it, wolfing down anti-inflammatories and resting it.

Maybe a little too much rest. Need to tote that bike down the stairs this afternoon and take a good long ride along the river.

That always lifts my spirit immediately. And slowly restarts the process of keeping my heart happy. The physical one this time, not the metaphorical.

I always wanted to attend a supreme court hearing.

Fascinating. Not the U.S. court I slipped into, but the Colorado court. Presumably less distinguished jurors, but the same process.

And a very important issue--for a couple reasons, it turns out--at least two of them very dear to my heart. A third one two, as it turned out, being argued from the other side. (But not so well, I think.)

The issue was the Columbine killers' writings and recordings, particularly the two most crucial chunks of evidence in the case, which are still being withheld more than six years later: Eric Harris' journal, and The Basement Tapes.

So much to say, and I will, hopefully later today. Got to run to get a CT scan, though. Finally getting my old injury checked out, and they need to do an extra series.

More soon.

AP story here. (And advance story on it from yesterday here.)