first things first. i found the ruins. fuck yeah.

i almost didn't--i took the side street/lane thing like i thought i'd try, and i followed a worn path a short distance to what seemed to be just the overgrown front lawn of where the house would have been. i turned to walk back, snapping pictures along the way, when i noticed another path that was almost completely overgrown with weeds and wildflowers.

sure enough, the ruins. not at all as i remembered them to be, more quaint than scarlet o'hara, but i got the same feeling i remembered. unfortunately, the stray bottles of minute maid and shattered glass showed that others had found the ruins as well, but i ignored them, instead slowly walking up and down the stairs. they consist of three levels, forming a ninety degree angle at each new level. the stones are green with moss but are not crumbling at all. the trees twist together around and above the stones, forming an intricate pattern of lines that block out the sunshine.

i took a roll of photographs without even realizing it. yes, i'm bizarre. but i'm looking forward to getting them back.

after work tonight (ugh, let's leave that at that), i got home to find the tape of "james dean" waiting for me (my mother scored major points tonight). so since i obviously couldn't wait to watch it tomorrow, i popped it in the vcr.

opinions? james franco was a dean clone at times, but then other times he looked nothing like him. seeing scenes from all three of his movies reconstructed was eerie, as was the accident scene (seeing something in color that, for whatever reason, i always imagine in black and white). the backbone of the movie, the father/son relationship with winton wound up so sickeningly sweet and romanticized that i found it laughable. who knows what actually happened, but this version made me feel like james and winton were about to pull out a couple of baseball gloves and play catch. ugh. overall opinion is that it wasn't what i hoped it would be, but i'm glad i saw it, i suppose. look at me, talking like i know how things really were. ha.