Quatre

Just finished watching "The Lovely Bones". I find it to be a profoundly moving film filled with great performances; Tucci and Ronan in particular are very good. I'm a die hard fan of all things Peter Jackson and this film just serves to solidify that. He's a brilliant and innovative director with vision to spare. From his very early gorefest films to "Heavenly Creatures" and onward to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy he has proved himself undeniably to be one of the very best directors working today.

He creates a palpable sense of dread in the early scenes involving Susie and Mr. Harvey. When it was all over I realized I was holding my breath! I mentioned Tucci and Ronan earlier as having given wonderful performances, but that's not to say the other principals don't also do a great job. I was very impressed by Mark Wahlberg, he gives his best performance since "The Departed" and the young girl who plays Lindsey, Susie's sister, is also very good :) All in all a great film, check it out!

Bored...

Hi all! It's 3am here on the east coast. Most people are asleep right now but I, as always, am not. I pretty much always work nights so I usually go to bed in the wee hours of the morning. It's just what I'm used to. To pass the time I usually watch movies and exercise. Right now I'm watching "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" starring one of my favorite actors, Geoffrey Rush. He's brilliant in the film, as always. His co-stars do a lovely job as well, especially Emily Watson as his first wife Anne. I've yet to see a bad performance from either of them. My all time favorite of his is "Shine" in which he plays the piano virtuoso David Helfgott. He's also very good in a film called "Swimming Upstream" in which he plays the alcoholic father of an Australian swimming champion. So that's all for now, maybe I'll try and go to sleep. We'll see...

Random...

Going to go have lunch with my dad in about an hour or so. I've been eating very(!!!) healthy for two straight weeks (an impressive feat for me) and need to continue to do so. Gotta get myself in shape for when I go to the beach in June! Maybe some grilled salmon or chicken for lunch accompanied by an obscene
(no such thing) amount of steamed vegetables, oil and vinegar for my salad, and absolutely no bread whatsoever :) I'm also not eating red meat, unfortunate since my dad's taking me to a steakhouse for lunch. I do love a good steak :( I do allow myself to have sweet tea though. Being a Southern Girl if I don't get a certain amount of sweet tea per day I start to fade away! ;) As I'm typing this I'm listening to, of course, Rufus Wainwright. It's actually "Greek Song", the song that made me first fall in love with his music some seven years ago. Oh yeah, and my face is broken out, not badly, but it's just enough to be annoying. Stupid face! Oh well, on to my afternoon workout. 20 minutes of yoga and about 30 crunches should do it for now. Namaste

Genesis...

Hi all! This is the first of what I hope will be many blogs about me and my life. As an introduction, I'd like to tell all of you a little about myself :)

My name is Ashley, I was born in 1985 to two wonderful parents who unfortunately are not together anymore. I live with my mother and younger brother, and my youngest brother lives with our father. I love all things music, except for rap and crazy you're-all-going-to-die death metal stuff. How anyone can call that "music" is beyond me because it certainly doesn't resemble anything I would call music, but hey, to each his own :D Along with that I love to sing, and one of my greatest dreams would be to become a recording artist but (sadly) I don't have the time to pursue that right now. I love films and all things cinema, love to discover new (and old) movies that fly under the radar. I think Stanley Tucci is an amazing actor and the most beautiful man I've ever laid eyes on (on the screen), he's definitely one of my favorite actors and I enjoy all of his work. For music my favorite artist is Rufus Wainwright. His music moves me to no end and I continually turn to it when life tries to get me down.

I LOVE to cook!!! And I'm damned good at it. Tonight was risotto milanese which came out splendidly, tasted like saffronic heaven <3 Tomorrow hopefully will be butternut squash soup followed by roast chicken breasts :) Nothing makes me happier than cooking for my friends and family and seeing how much they love what I've made for them.

I work as a waitress/assistant manager/anything else under the sun at a local casual dining, full-service restaurant. I cannot divulge the name of this place but I can tell you it's a national brand that does very well and is fairly well respected (as much as a corporate restaurant can be anyway). I've been there for nearly four years and most days I love my job. And I know what you're thinking, "My GOD a waitress who loves what she does?! I've never heard such nonsense!" Well I do. The good far outweighs the bad and I'm good, scratch that, GREAT at what I do so I never have any real problems at work.

There's so much more I could write here but I think I've indulged my narcissism enough for today so I'll bid you all good reading, and see you tomorrow :)