We're creeping towards Christmas, and to be honest, it doesn't feel like Christmas at all. Part of this might be because I've not really started my Christmas shopping. Partly it's because we haven't decorated the house (we're not going to be home for Christmas and we decided we couldn't afford to buy decorations and presents -- Sigh. Why do bills have to come in December?) Partly it's because I'm rushing around madly at work still. Partly it's because, well, Christmas seems ever so slightly less like Christmas with every year you retreat from childhood.

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We went to see Garden State at the weekend. We hadn't intended to, but we were feeling the need to get out so we went on a whim. The movie had been getting good reviews so we thought we'd give it a try. And it was good. The humour was cool and quirky, the character were likeable and different. It wasn't quite as good as the reviews had made out. The end didn't work, and throughout it felt like the whole movie was just teetering on the edge of falling to bits, although it never did. On the plus side, there were some great performances. Natalie Portman was excellent, something it's hard to believe after Star Wars: The Abomination. Ian Holm was incredible. He only had a small role and a few lines, but he just projected the cold, emotionally-flawed father perfectly. I could almost feel myself wanting to back away in my seat or leave whenever he was on screen trying to talk to his son. Great stuff.

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An interesting opinion piece in the Guardian today.

"No one can say with any certainty," Bush asserts, "what constitutes a dangerous level of warming, and therefore what level must be avoided." As we don't know how bad it is going to be, he suggests, we shouldn't take costly steps to prevent it. Now read that statement again and substitute "terrorism" for "warming". When anticipating possible terrorist attacks, the US administration, or so it claims, prepares for the worst. When anticipating the impacts of climate change, it prepares for the best.

--George Monbiot, America's War on Itself, The Guardian

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Progress on The Sleepers has been really slow. I'm feeling my way along at the moment, one hand out in front of me in the darkness, as I try to get what is to happen to gel in my mind. I'm sure I'll get there--I always have before--but it's a painful process meanwhile.