April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

The cruelest month, indeed. I woke to hard rain, crashing straight down, big drops making the deck sing with the impact. The cadence changed and the drops took on a clotted appearance. Peering more intently, I realized it was no longer rain but had turned to snow. Large clumps the size of babies' fists, coating the grass and the forsythia and the robins' wings. Many cups of tea later the snow had stopped and the wild wind had taken its place. It continues to rattle the windows, which are lockless while the painters finish with the trim. March was cold and bitter, April is shaping up to be a soulless partner.

Movies: True Lies. On my list of guilty pleasure movies, although I don't watch the last 30 minutes or so, which are an unnecessary appendage. The gadgets are outdated, the computer screens show only text and simplistic graphics, the acting is wooden. All that and I still watch it every time it makes the rounds on TV.

Blue Car. I've loved David Strathairn since The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd. He's wonderful in this tiny budget film (listen to the commentary to hear the details of how to make a movie on a shoe string and a dream). This not-a-storybook story of a disjointed family is tight and disturbing and very, very real. The child who cuts herself, won't eat and ultimately tries to fly out a window because she believes she's an angel. The older sister who can't save her sibling or her mother and who watches with detachment as she allows herself to be drawn in to the fantasies of a teacher. The teacher himself who tries to believe he's never done this before. All of this wrapped up with a beautiful score makes a memorable movie.

Books: Little Children, by Tom Perotta. Perotta explores the small flaws in suburban parents that give way to yawning chasms through nothing more than boredom and chance encounters. The "Prom King", the mom who doesn't fit in with the other play group mothers, the child molester (who may or may not be a murderer), the damaged ex-cop - they all show traits of little children - the petulance and the whining and the tantrums. It makes going to an office job every day seem like a walk in the park.