Here I am, up in the morning again. Jen took Nate to his "laser dentist" appointment a little over an hour ago. The Dickens is in the front room watching "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (the last time she saw it, she grabbed a handful of diaper muffins and was found in the kitchen proclaiming "gockolate!"). I am definitely going back to bed when Jen and Nate return. Oh yeah, and Lexy is still asleep, no doubt worn out by yesterday's Harry Potter marathon.

Jen and I, accompanied by a sleeping Willow, went and saw "28 Days Later" yesterday, which proved to be a lot of fun (although afterward Jen noted that her muscles hurt from the strain of being tensed up for the duration of the movie). The film is a worthwhile homage to Romero's lovely zombie trilogy, containing elements of all three of those films, and adding a few new twists (running zombies!?!!!). I've always loved films that depict deserted cities (especially if they're major cities like London). I've always liked ghost towns too. How long does it take things to fall apart if everybody leaves? One good touch in the film was the burning skyline of Manchester, and the comment of one of the characters, who observed that there were, "no fire crews to put it out." Without people a city becomes like an old beehive empty of bees, hanging on a branch or inside a forgotten wall - just one more artifact of something that was, to one day be discovered by people who care about that sort of thing (entomologists or archeologists...). Maybe this train of thought could give us insight into how beings from the distant future would view us if they were to come upon all of our... well, all of our stuff. And just how long would it take for the plants to split up the concrete and asphalt? How long would it take the leaves to blanket the buildings? How long would it take for the moisture to rust the metal? What kind of animals would move into our vacated homes? When would the last Twinkie finally biodegrade? I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job of conveying this fascination of mine or not. Perhaps I'll try again another time.

cds I listened to while back on my elongated nocturnal schedule: Ennio Morricone "The Thing" soundtrack, Strafe F.R. "Ochsle - Bad People Have No Songs" and "Pianoguitar", and Somtow Sucharitkul "Kaki" (you gotta love a person who has both "horror novels" and "ballets" in his resume)