i went out into the clear air / and raised my eyes to the heavens / to understand our stars / and their january brilliance.

• ✔ jan. 1: new year's day!
• ✔ jan. 6: feast of the epiphany
• ✔ jan. 7: little women @ 10:40 am
• ✔ jan. 7: knives out @ 1:15 pm
• ✔ jan. 13: oscar noms announced !!
  • ford v ferrari? jojo rabbit? 1917? we love to see it !
• ✔ jan. 14: 1917 @ 10:00 am
• ✔ jan. 14: contest deadline
• ✔ jan. 20: martin luther king jr. day
• ✔ jan. 20: film league: diner @ 7:00 pm
• ✔ jan. 21: 1917 ↺ @ 10:00 am
• ✔ jan. 22: 1917 ↺ @ 2:10 pm
• ✔ jan. 25: lunar new year
• ✔ jan. 28: 1917 ↺ @ 7:10 pm
• ✔ jan. 29: lew's birthday :0)!

goals

• ✔ update vision board for current season/goals
• ✔ clean out computer + update
• ✔ clean out phone + update
• ✔ bake panettone for the epiphany

obsessions

• $5 tuesdays at the cinema! doing a double feature for only $10 plus $1 popcorn? in THIS economy of me having only a few dollars in my purse at any given time? the insanity of it all
• um... the monkees. my four best friends whomst i adore :)
  • davy: i wanna go home! i'm gonna feed my dog....and take a bath....and set my hair :)

moments

• making panettone for the epiphany and the mixer calling it quits, forcing me to knead the dough by hand.... a happy misfortune, as it gave me time to think about this tradition that i was engaging in, the creation of food by hand, one that my ancestors lived and breathed in the south of italy. i imagined my many mothers to be fierce, resilient women with strong arms and strong hands, made to knead dough, made to touch and soothe a crying infant, made to hold the entire world... my heart swelled with pride to think of them!
• more so a collection of moments: the ecstasy of writing! it's like being possessed... i have to take a melatonin every night because i get too excited to wake up the next morning and write; it makes me toss and turn. my head swims with ideas, i can't put them to sleep!
• writing down notes on a napkin during 1917 and then using that napkin to dry the tears sliding down my cheeks, rendering it illegible.... classic dana
• i've started writing directly in notion instead of just using it to organize my projects and. there's a love letter emoji link embedded in my ten-minute play that goes directly to a picture of dean-charles chapman with the caption "do it for him" and absolutely no other context..... THIS is how you write a pulitzer prize winning piece of drama thank you !
• the absolutely staggering tenderness of fixing justin's nosebleed after he ate it at the skatepark.....hm. perhaps i love love and everything to do with it

good things about the month

• baking panettone; realizing how battered my copy of ibsen plays is getting, the margins filled with blue ink; english breakfast tea, which has become a daily comfort; roy orbison; writing, revising; the snow falling as i came out of little women; the monkees! peter tork's dimples, country boy mike nesmith and singing papa gene's blues at the top of my lungs, micky dolenz who was my mother's crush as a little girl, and davy jones, my love, my sweet, the little jockey with the big heart, who i carry around in my shirt pocket; keeping a diary in spanish to bring me back to fluency; 1917 !! & of course, crying as soon as the title card appeared; dancing in the kitchen; jude law movies; that little smile and eye roll i get from justie when he hands me the aux cord and i play exclusively abba; all quiet on the western front, nearly every line of which is marked; intertextuality between books and films; rainer maria rilke; spotting an extremely nerdy easter egg during my 2nd go-around with 1917; lance corporal thomas blake; book hauls from the thrift store; a package from marie!; padding into the kitchen in the morning to see how my dough has risen overnight; tips from the master breadmaker also known as my father, "whatever you do, don't give up!"; peering into the oven together and feeling the warmth cascading from inside; hymn - mvt. 1: prelude; a productive and joy-filled first chapter of 2020