(Originally published April 23, 2006, elsewhere-net)
Executive summary of life at this time: Age 33. Year 5 living in TriBeSa; a new world of being single and actively polyamorous was opening up (rather than the half-hearted attempts I’d made before); I started to dip my toe into creative and professional pursuits that might someday deliver me from the staid bookkeeping life.1
—Sooze, Oakland, 2018
Welcome once again to Sooze’s Year-End Wrap (as if any of us even remembers 2005. It’s fucking April already, for chrissake!)
A special note: since blogging has taken a bit of a back-burner for me of late, this entry isn’t nearly as thorough as my previous two. You’re welcome.
Shit that went down in 2005
*Um…J. and I broke up. I don’t want to go into it much now. I’ll just say it’s been transformative, in the sad and icky sense, and also in the beautiful and liberating.
*I started two new bookkeeping gigs at the beginning of 2005, of which one remains. Later in the year, I started working retail in the Castro at a nonprofit LGBT organization, a highly social and fun venture, but not very lucrative. Got back in touch with my super-nonprofit-fundraising side, which has been pretty cool.
*I started getting my slut on again! And I became involved with some amazing lovers whose presence in my life is invaluable. I can’t really express enough how thankful I am for this. I’ve been reflecting on it a lot recently, and I have to say that I have no idea how I allowed myself to live with such a dearth of lust and affection and sex for so long in my last relationship, and to a certain extent, in all of my previous long-term relationships. This was not J.’s fault (nor anyone else’s); it’s a dynamic between me and my long-term partners that I need to work on uprooting. I think I’m much kinder to myself, and to my partners, in scads of ways, when I’m not cocooned in a married-like state. I’m trying to keep uncocooned for a good long while.
*My apartment got broken into, and my computer was stolen.2
*I ran into Bianca on a trip to Santa Cruz, and it sucked. I then ran into Bella a few months later at a show in San Francisco. Both of these sightings were the first in close to a decade. You can never run from your past.3
*I had a couple of years of revolving housemates.
*Took a screenwriting class at SF City College, and I wrote the first 40 pages of a feature-length screenplay (at least the very first draft of one).4
The Culture I Consumed in 2005
I haven’t reviewed the books, films, shows, etc. this time around. I’ve included links to some of particular interest. The sections are, more or less, in ranked order of my enjoyment of them. Star ratings one * (pretty awful) to five ***** (masterpiece) in my quasi-objective estimation.
Leave a comment if you want the justification for the number of stars I’ve given something.
The Books I read
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (2002) *****
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi (2000) ****
Fearless Jones by Walter Mosely (2001) ***
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (1957) ***
Choir Boy by Charlie Jane Anders (2005) ***
Becoming a Writer by Dorothea Brande (1934) ****
Faith by Sharon Salzberg (2003) **
Various chapters from The Art of Dramatic Writing by Lajos Egri (1972) *** and Story by Robert McKee (1997) ***
The Films I Saw in the Theater
Me and You and Everyone We Know (2005) **** (loved it!)
Capote (2005) **** (loved)
Sideways (2004) ****
Kinsey (2004) ***
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005) *** (Surprised by how much I liked this movie. Very funny and full of heart.)
Filthy/Gorgeous: The Tranny Shack Story (2005) ** (screening at Frameline 2005) – link is NSFW. Fun, and an important documentation of the scene, but not great on the execution.
In Cold Blood (1967) *** (revival)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) **½ (meh, my least favorite Wes Anderson film to date)
Happy Endings (2005) **½
Brokeback Mountain (2005) *** (beautifully shot and acted, but also the most overrated film of the year)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) *** (didn’t enjoy it near as much as the 1971 version.)
Beauty Shop (2005) **½
Millions (2004) **½ 5
The Bad News Bears (2005) ** (again, I’m terribly biased toward the filthy, extremely problematic original.)
On DVD/Video
TV Shows
Six Feet Under – Seasons 3 and 4 (2003-2004) ****
The L Word – Season 2 (2005) **½
Friends – Seasons 8 and 9 (2001-2003) ***
Sex and the City – Season 6 (2003-2004) ***
Films
Shaun of the Dead (2004) **** (fucking brilliant!)
Klute (1971) **** (probably Jane Fonda’s best performance ever, though Barbarella and Judy Bernly were pretty fucking great, too.)
Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) ****
The Battle of Algiers (1966) *****
Before Sunrise (1995) ***½
The Seventh Seal (1957) ****
Fucking Åmål (Show Me Love) (1998) *** 6
Chan is Missing (1982) *** (One of Wayne Wang’s first movies; watched it in my awesome screenwriting class.)
The Bourne Supremacy (2004) ***
Before Sunset (2004) ***
Dirty Filthy Love (2004) ***
Crash (1996) **½ 7
We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004) ***
In the Soup (1992) **
Fubar (2002) ** (Canadian stoner fare.)
Closer (2004) **
The Corporation (2003) ****
The Quiet American (2002) ***
Goldfish Memory * (At least the title would imply that you’d immediately forget this fucking awful movie.) 8
Latter Days (2003) * (ugh! cliché tortured gay mormon schmaltz)
The Bridget Jones sequel – didn’t finish watching it
Reruns
Napoleon Dynamite
Little Darlings
The Breakfast Club
Lost In Translation
Female Trouble
Pecker
Hairspray
Pink Flamingos (thanks, James, for the John Waters box set!)
Shows/Concerts
Sloan – Slim’s, San Francisco
Paradigm – Red Devil Lounge, San Francisco
Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – Bimbo’s, San Francisco – Ted Leo is a bitchin’ fucking performer, that’s all I gotta say.
Gillian Welch – The Fillmore, San Francisco
Jonathan Richman & John Waters – The Fillmore, San Francisco (odd, but successful combination of talent)
That’s all she wrote, kids.
–Sooze
Post Script, 2018
1 So far, my staid bookkeeping life has never actually ended. But 2005 was the year I staged a career intervention for myself with some good friends, in which we brainstormed possible career paths for me, and it was the year I took a screenwriting class. 2006 would become a pivotal career path year for me…
2 This was the first of two times my TriBeSa apartment was broken into and my computer stolen. The next time was in 2010, in the same week my mom died. My apartment manager insinuated that this was because of the dodgy company I keep. It would be another six years before I finally left that tenement.
3 The story of Bianca and Bella had a larger context in my original blog, but I’m choosing not to detail it here. Ask me in person if you want to hear about the most humbling experience of my twenties.
4 As yet unfinished.
5 I remember literally nothing about this movie.
6 Again, like A Ma Soeur, reviewed in the 2004 Wrap, apparently American film distributors don’t think we can handle the titles of movies in another language.
7 The J.G. Ballard adaptation, not the other one.
8 Nope, still remember it.
The Navelgazery 