My folks gave me my birthday present early, a great new camera used here to show my brother's sweet kitty, Miike, upside-down.

Spent the weekend shopping for books in Cheyenne and Denver. Got a gang of new things that I really don't have the time to read at the moment, but come summer I'll be set up.

The Oscars seemed more creative than past attempts. I liked the idea of underscoring the speeches with music, and I liked the bits about the nominees campaigning against each other. Glad Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Reese Witherspoon all won. But poor John Stewart seemed to have bombed - did anyone else notice that the cutaways to the audience showed a lot of sullen faces and little reaction to his humor? It's too bad Hollywood is so uptight.

As for the fashion (always my favorite part of the evening) three of my favorites were:

Charlize Theron in Dior Haute Couture by John Galliano:



Naomi Watts in Givenchy:



Michelle Williams in Vera Wang:



Today I'm finishing J.M. Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians for my African Lit. class. Part of me dislikes the idea of his inclusion in such a class, given his whiteness and all, especially because we could be reading any number of other unrepresented authors like Tutuola, Aidoo, or Armah, but without a doubt this book is amazing. From just this book and the only other one of his I've read in the past, I've decided he's certainly worth all the attention. That white guy can scribble...."What bird has the heart to sing in a thicket of thorns?"