Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

Go drink some water. Right now.

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On Sunday Nina and I decided to on a little run, starting at Sierra Azul and ending at my house, about 13 miles away. It has hills! It has shade! It’s the perfect run.

Well, not so much.

It turns out that the Sierra Azul trail is pretty much straight up for 7 miles and then straight down for 4.5. And most of it’s not shaded. While Sunday wasn’t as hot as, say, Saturday was, it was still pretty damn sunny. And you know: straight up. We didn’t run it so much as hike it as fast as we could and take panting breaths under the periodic spots of shade. We both ran out of water, and when we got to Lexington Reservoir my mouth was so dry that I said, “Screw this” (not especially easy to do with dry mouth), and I called Darin to come get us.

Today I was at the doctor’s office, where the nurse took my blood pressure. 88/55. She blinked, looked at me, decided against calling for the crash cart, and said, “Let’s take that again.” 92/65.

While I always have low blood pressure, that’s ridiculous. That’s deydration in action: the blood is sluggish ’cause there’s no damn liquid in it.

Go drink some water! Right this minute!

Hot Fuzz: the review

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They had me at “From the guys who brought you Shaun of the Dead.”

Nicholas Angel is the Supercop on London’s Metropolitan Police Force. He has a four hundred percent higher arrest record than anyone else and he can do everything a cop needs to better than anyone else. Needless to say, everyone on the force hates him — he’s making them look bad. So Angel gets shipped out to the picturesque village of Sandford, the sort of place that wins Village of the Year awards and where nothing ever happens. Or…does it?

Angel immediately starts applying his Supercop ways to a town where the biggest problem appears to be a seriously bad production of Romeo and Juliet. Angel’s new partner is Danny Butterman, a shlubby guy who’s the son of the town’s amiable police captain. He’s also got a serious jones for American cop movies, like Bad Boys II and Point Blank, and he’s wondering what it’s like to be a Supercop, guns blazing, taking down criminals. Needless to say, he’s gonna find out.

The movie manages to be a fun parody of American cop movies and quaint British villages all at the same time. The third act, which involves more guns and ammo than have probably ever existed in Great Britain (including pre-peace settlement Northern Ireland), is utterly hilarious. I loved Shaun of the Dead and this is a great followup — however Edgar Wright (writer and director), Simon Pegg (writer and star), and Nick Frost (star) put these insane things together, it works great.

My play will be produced!

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The other I got an e-mail telling me that my play has been accepted into the New Works Festival at Foothill College! I am so thrilled you can hardly imagine. I’m going to have a play produced this year! (Considering one of my goals for the year has been, “Get my work out in front of people,” I’d say I can make a small check next to that entry in the ledger.)

The New Works Festival (here’s the info about last year’s show) presents an evening of 6 to 8 10-15 minute plays. Rehearsals start in June and the show is produced sometime in August.

Needless to say, as the time approaches, I will be putting up banners all over the place for anyone who might be interested in attending what I think will be a fine evening of theater. I’ve seen most of the plays that are in the show — the best thing about the Playwriting class is that every week the writers bring in pages and actors get up in front of the class to act them out, which brilliant and useful when you want to see what works and what doesn’t — and these plays are great (if I don’t mind saying so myself, which apparently I don’t).

Now the actual work of getting my play into the best shape it can be begins! Woooooo!