Blizzarded . . .

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. I sure did. Hanging with my wife and daughter, with nowhere in particular to go . . . very nice. Of course, then Sunday we got smacked with the blizzard. Hard to tell how much we got; but I'd say close to two feet isn't much of an exaggeration; and then there were the drifts! Luckily my workplace is civilized enough to not open for business today. I can work from home as needed, so I've been doing that a bit; but mostly reading Tolstoy.

I did manage to get some scribbling done on my new two-hander yesterday. I went back to the beginning and just started reading with a critical eye to cut what isn't necessary or to add where something needs it. Early drafts can be rife with talk for the sake of talk, or general stuff that needs a bit more specificity; that's what rewriting is about to my eye anyway: to bring clarity. That's what I'll be looking for as I hack away at the piece, trying to get that block of granite to look like something coherent.

Oh, I did get a nice run in before the blizzard yesterday, did my seven mile-ish Nyack to Piermont run. Felt great.

Christmas night we went to see True Grit. Great yarn. Excellent characters well acted by the three leads in particular, Barry Pepper was a very convincing Lucky Ned Pepper, and Josh Brolin had just the right dim bulb vibe for Tom Chaney. It's really Rooster Cogburn's show though, and Jeff Bridges was excellent. More debauched than John Wayne, and a lot more going on under the surface. Finally a good LaBeof! Glen Campbell was embarrassing in the original, but Matt Damon was right on. The new girl was wonderful as Matty as well. I still thing The King's Speech is the one to beat this year, but True Grit is very worth seeing.