Before I start: Go see Face/Off. It was good. Really, really good. If you have any liking for action movies at all you should go. Or if you like good cinematography, or style, or angst, or heart-wrenching emotions, or mind games. Just go see it. If you've only been exposed to American action movies you're going to be on a really wild ride, because John Woo finally got to make a Hong Kong style movie on an American budget.

The authors of the script claimed that it was a psychological thriller masquerading as an action movie. I think they're right.

I enjoyed the weekend, but in retrospect it feels a little strange. Earl was here from Thursday to Monday, having been flown up again by his company. It's a nice deal; he spends three days being brilliant for them and I get the weekend for no additional fee.

Friday after the movie we went to dessert, mostly with people I don't see much of. Gretchen and Brad were there, and so was Bryant. Some devil of contrariness caused me to ask Bryant if he remembered Ceej from talk.bizarre, and this led me to discover that Bryant and Gretchen both read her journal, as well as some of the others.

This complicated the conversation, because yes, of course I read Ceej's journal, that's how I got to know her as more than a name. I had to admit that, certainly. But it led down a slippery road, as I tried to figure out how to carry on this conversation without admitting how intertwined I'm starting to become in this world of online diarists. Without admitting that I do my own journal.

I couldn't, really. I said, as offhand as I could, that I'd started doing my own journal, and Gretchen of course asked where it was -- but, being Gretchen, she immediately backed off when I said lightly 'I'm not telling'. She demands enough privacy that I'm never surprised when she respects it.

I had the shakes for about ten minutes afterwards, though. It's one thing for Earl to read my journal, since anything I might say here is stuff I'd tell him anyway. It's another thing, a scarier thing, to have friends I'm not that close to reading this. People who know me, people who see me regularly, but not people who know what the inside of my skull is like. Does it make sense, to have that be more frightening than all you strangers? Of course, some of you aren't really quite strangers now, but when we're reading each other's diaries the risk doesn't seem as great.

(No, Trip. I don't mean you. Keep on reading, if you like.)

So that was Friday. Saturday Earl and I drove over the hill and spent the day in Santa Cruz. Neither of us had been there since November, when we spent the night at a really nice bed & breakfast. It was good to be there with him again. Most of my memories from last fall are tinged with a miserable insecurity due to our circumstances, so even the best times (and Santa Cruz in November was one of the best times I'd ever had) are a little painful in retrospect. I was aware, a little, of wanting to acquire a new set of memories now that things are settled.

We walked on the beach, with me getting wet up to mid-thigh (I'd rolled up my floppy pants into short-shorts) and Earl laughing every time I was surprised by a wave. After we'd had enough of the ocean we went downtown, to buy books and admire art. I picked up lots of good young-adult stuff, including an excellent vampire story that's better than just about anything else I've read along those lines. Sort of like Those Who Hunt the Night, but with a modern setting and a teenage protagonist. Not to mention an extremely cute-but-ruthless vampire.

We had dinner at Pearl Alley Bistro, where I ran into two people I used to work with at Netcom and chatted a little bit. It's been so long since I was the person who worked at Netcom... I don't know what to say to those people any more. I'm glad they're happy with what they're doing. They don't seem to have changed.

Dinner also included an interesting conversation between myself and Earl. He's afraid that I'll sacrifice my interests to spend time with him, then regret it if we break up. Going deeper, I think he's afraid that he has 'undue influence' on me. We're both people used to getting our own way, which is (I think) one reason we do so well for each other. I can trust him to tell me if something is important to him, and hopefully he knows now that I'll do the same.

Sacrifices and regrets. Earl frets occasionally that I will end up hating myself for having moved to Los Angeles if, after living together, we end up breaking up. Or perhaps he worries that I'll feel he has ruined my life, I'm not sure. He does worry, though, and this takes the form of occasional reminders that I may discover that I can't stand his yodelling in the mirror every morning at 5am, and then where will I be if I've put off school for a few years because of him?

These reminders make me nervous -- like he's telling me not to be too happy, since it might all fall apart. But isn't that always true? Sure, the longer you're together the more you know about the relationship, but at any given moment you can say 'We could fall apart tomorrow'. I have to make my decisions based on the idea that we're going to work hard at staying together. I can't hold back on how I make choices out of fear; if I did that I'd never choose anything at all.

I reassured him that I wouldn't give up anything I was passionate about for him. In a way, writing this, I'm telling him again. Don't worry. You don't overpower me. I don't overpower you. That doesn't happen very often for me, that I can be with someone without having to hold myself back. It's so good to have that, to have at least one person that I can talk to without worrying that I'm hitting their insecurities by being intelligent, by being well-read, by being attractive.

(No, he doesn't really yodel, or if he does he's doing it pretty quietly.)

What's the difference between ironic and twisted? Pulp Fiction was ironic, but Face/Off was twisted. Seven was also twisted. Marith says that Pulp Fiction and Face/Off are similar, but I'm not sure I see it. Pulp Fiction was stylised and ironic and full of black humour. Face/Off hits you in the gut and twists the knife at every opportunity.

Go see it. Then come and tell me what you think.