Andrew's been keeping me stocked with baked goods while I'm working so much. Over the past few weeks, it's been brownies and cookies and cake. Early this morning, I heard the lock turn and his trying-to-be-quiet footsteps as he dropped off something and left again. Later I found four cupcakes on a plate, frosted in fudge and decorated with little flowers. He knows I've been craving cupcakes since I read that NY Times article about the cupcake craze in NYC (the slideshow version of the article included several delectable shots of the cushy little cakes). I ate two straightaway, which is just fine because Sunday I ran 9 miles and I'll run 20 more before the week is out.

That would be 9 miles in the rain, drum-corps-on-the-roof rain, rain so heavy at times that long thin streams of it fell from my chin and hands, as if from a stone, like that illustration I remember from one of my childhood fairy tale books. As a result, I've decided to upgrade my exercise status to "hard core," retroactive to the RSVP.

I can't remember the last time I had a break that resembled a weekend. It's been a month or more. This weekend I was at the lab on Saturday, and Sunday I ran the 9 and then spent 6.5 hours at the Law School. Yesterday was all lab plus Human Subjects training. This morning, nowhere to be but the desk, I let myself sleep in then lie in bed awake and nearly motionless for about an hour. When that wasn't enough, I just did the dishes—all the dishes were dirty—and then watched TV (Matrix Reloaded special features). I feel better now.

I'm afraid I'm overcommitted, and I'm struggling to find the best way to manage the time famine over the next few weeks. I've got my hand in a lot of things. Usually only one of these is hot while the others slack, but these days all are thriving. It's too much, but it wouldn't be wise to try to shed some of it because I know that the intensity will subside soon. With Thanksgiving and the holidays around the corner, anything to do with the university will cease. In the meantime, I've got about 80 hours of copyediting left on the current project, and ongoing obligations to MS.

In all this mess, I find that I have no tolerance for false exigencies, particularly in social situations. If someone says something has to occur at such-and-such a time, for no good reason, I opt out.

Saturday night a bunch of us made it out to see Matrix Revolutions, though. There were a lot of unsatisfying things about the film, but I feel a lot of brand loyalty to the Matrix and can't condemn it entirely. To me the 2nd and 3rd films are like an encore to a complete show—not as well-planned and executed, but you love them for coming out to perform again anyway. I miss the comic-book perspectives—the full-on action flick stylings of the latter two don't do it for me. Most of all, I miss the optimism of the original. I couldn't care less about Zion and its people (which is a serious failing of the moviemakers), so I was sad to see the demise of the only two characters I did care about. And the sadness is funny, because it has more to do with knowing that my relationship to the first film is irrevocably changed now that I've seen the series.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Kill Bill, too. Everyone seems to be loving it, but I didn't like it. While it was playing, I sat there thinking, Lot's of cool stuff is happening here, but I'm just not digging this. In retrospect, it seems every novel juxtaposition in the film was based on cliches. I think Tarantino has lost touch with his art and the audience, and his ego is taking over. With every new film, his personality increasingly pollutes the story and the acting—it's all about him and every possible idea he can stuff into a frame. Like, "Oh, we've got a woman in coma! Let's get a sleazy guy to rape her." How unoriginal, and worse, predictable. So many scenes were like that—gratuitous cliches that dragged on and on. The worst was that scene where Uma has to kill like 50 people. You know she's going to live, so after she kills the first 10 or so and all those other guys come at her, you're like, Ah Christ, I gotta sit through how many more minutes of the same old spliced-and-diced American-style movie-kung-fu? There was no tension whatsoever. Yeah, even Yuen Wo Ping recycled some moves from Crouching Tiger and the Matrix. What the hell? OMG, and don't get me started on the half-assed anime segment, the forced dialogue, or the obvious transitions to Uma's stunt double….

Finally, last night I watched Sixteen Candles. It's been a long time since I watched the whole thing, but when I was a teenager, I used to watch it all the time. It's amazing how dated it looks! But, it's a film firmly in my generation. While watching it, I caught myself saying to Andrew, "I used to have one just like that." Or, "We used to do that, too." Oh man, I don't even like to think about how old that makes me now in the eyes of the 13-year-old self who so heavily identified with the movie. I would love to have another pair of those crystal earrings that Samantha wears to school on her birthday, though. Everybody wore those, remember?

OK. A Coke and two cupcakes oughtta hold me for the night.